


If One Of Us Is Going to Suffer, Why Shouldn't It Be Me?

by insunshine, sinuous_curve



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-06
Updated: 2010-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-09 22:53:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insunshine/pseuds/insunshine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinuous_curve/pseuds/sinuous_curve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Jon's seventeenth birthday he gets a, "Jon, Jonny, honey, you know this had nothing to do with you, don't you," a "We may not love each other anymore, but we still love you," tears sliding down his mother's cheeks, and an eyeful more than he ever wanted to see of his father's new girlfriend (waiting impatiently in the car), Sindi. Jon's pretty sure she was his babysitter when he was ten.</p><p>That's just the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If One Of Us Is Going to Suffer, Why Shouldn't It Be Me?

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by wordsalone and bluevsgrey
> 
> Includes habitual underage drug use and mentions of a background character's suicide attempt

For Jon's seventeenth birthday he gets a, "Jon, Jonny, honey, you know this had nothing to do with you, don't you," a "We may not love each other anymore, but we still love you," tears sliding down his mother's cheeks, and an eyeful more than he ever wanted to see of his father's new girlfriend (waiting impatiently in the car), Sindi. Jon's pretty sure she was his babysitter when he was ten.

That's just the beginning.

It's September, he's starting his junior year and sure, it sucks that his parents are divorcing and sure it'll be different and it'll be a challenge, but he's a first string quarter back who made Varsity.

The world is pretty good.

Within a year, Sindi's pregnant (and his mother is having him crush Xanax into her coffee just so she can get up in the morning), Jon's being considered for a football scholarship to UNLV and he's been outed as one of the two gay kids in the whole school.

This is just the beginning.

At three a.m the morning of his eighteenth birthday, just six days after the start of his senior year and right around the same time as Sindi's sixth month, the phone in his bedroom rings.

Jon's exhausted and dead to the world (his mother isn't the only one who uses her Xanax liberally), and doesn't pick it up.

He'll never forgive himself for that.

His brother Mike, his fucking brother, is found with slit wrists in his bathroom by his two-year-old daughter Kaycee.

When her mother comes home, the toddler is screaming, covered head-to-toe in blood.

He doesn't die, but it's a close thing. All the drugs coursing through his system don't help matters.

The prognosis is as good as it can be; he'll make it, but they don't know for how long, he'll wake up but he won't be the same.

He'll never see his daughter again if Missy (Jon shudders to call her a wife. They'd tattooed their ring fingers and promised each other ever-loving thought and devotion. "Marriage is just a piece of paper, Jonny boy," Mike said, arm wrapped around Jon's shoulder, mouth curved into a smile as he watched Missy, pregnant and happy; so fucking happy. Marriage may just be a piece of paper, Jon knows, but it also gives you rights. Mike has none) has her way.

Jon wishes he could blame her.

*

This is just the fucking beginning.

Bill runs and Jon tells himself he wishes he could blame him, he understands why his older brother would pick up his wife and four kids and move two hours away, "Close enough to come back if anything happens and whenever we just miss you." He doesn't.

He does blame Bill for getting out, for not coming back to Chicago until they were sure Mike wasn't going to die.

Jon wakes up every day in September to the muffled sounds his mother crying in her bathroom, to Mike's cartoons snaking up through the vents from the basement (the basement has been refurbished since Mike's "accident". There are no more sharp edges, no glass, no knives), and the silence where his father should be.

He showers and dresses, makes coffee and takes a tip from his mother, crushing three Xanax into it. They're not stolen from her anymore, they're bought from a guy who is a friend of a friend of Jon's buddy William. Weed and Xanax and Jon thinks if he were a little smarter or a little deeper, not just a jock that combination would say something meaningful and profound about him, or his current mental state.

Instead, it's weed to relax and Xanax to stay alive.

Backpack, filled with a couple cheap new notebooks and last year's pens, and a chipped thermos filled with his chemically altered coffee and Jon grabs his keys off the kitchen table (just one for the house and another for his father and Sindi's apartment that he's never used).

He eases open the basement door and slips halfway down the creaking staircase. Mike's sitting on the battered couch with his hands resting palms up on his knees. The scars almost glow in the blue light of the TV, needle marks high up near his elbow and jagged slits lower down near his wrist. Healed now.

"Bye, Mike," Jon says; he doesn't expect a reaction and he doesn't get one.

His mom's bedroom door is still shut tight and Jon is a selfish son who doesn't want to see her eyes, permanently rimmed in raw red circles, bruise color shadows puffed up beneath them.

It's his last year of school and it's possible he has a piece of paper in the top drawer of his desk with how many days left until graduation written in black sharpie. The plan is to count down before he falls asleep every night and maybe, if he's lucky, he won't go crazy.

Jon closes the front door and locks it (his mom might or might not go to work, it's a crapshoot on any given day) and starts down the walk. It's raining, spitting really, and the water stings against his arms and face, cold and pervasive.

*

There's one more class Jon needs to take before his "official high school course work" can be completed and UNLV can start making their muted murmurs a reality.

He's not looking forward to Art History because he's never had a head for facts or dates. He likes pictures, but he likes them to be tangible and real, not some cubic masterpiece by a guy who was probably tripping on more acid than Jon ever has.

"Assignments," the nasal-voiced teacher, Mr. James, says, and Jon blinks. It's like the two weeks have passed in a second and he's staring down the guy who's going determine if Jon gets to leave this God forsaken city. "You'll be partnered up, no changes, no altering of your informational packets, this will count as forty-five percent of your final grade."

Jon shoots a stealthy look around the room, and there's not one single person he wants to spend forty plus hours with during the course of the rest of the year.

He figures out pretty quick that they're being partnered up alphabetically, and it takes him a minute, but just before Mr. James calls, "Walker, Urie," he knows who he's going to be paired with.

Brendon Urie is this music geek who wears the same fucking pair of paint streaked magenta cords every day. He's got crazy hair and an even crazier mouth and Jon's pretty sure he never stops smiling.

He's the other Gay Kid at their high school. Jon's expecting the catcalls, the low whistles. What he's not expecting is to look over to Brendon Urie, with his fucking stupid hair and his stupider glasses and want.

*

The thing is, Jon doesn't like Brendon.

Maybe that exaggerating things slightly. Jon doesn't like the group of people Brendon is irrevocably associated with, the artistic, affected kids who pretend to be deep, but Jon suspects are really just pulling it out of their asses and groping through life like the rest of the peons who go to the school.

It's also possibly a tit for tat thing. They're the kids most likely to call him a jock in that snide tone that always seems to suggest he's the scum of the earth for being able to run fast and throw far and catch well. Like the one thing he's any good at could never come within spitting distance of even prostrating itself before the awe and power of the arts.

Brendon plays an instrument or six and does weird, scribbled drawings in pen and shit that get tacked up on the boards outside the art rooms.

Back in the day, in dark depths of freshman year, Jon's fairly certain they were stuck together in an intro to drawing class or something like that. Jon was trying to get the credits out of the way and spent most of the semester sitting in the back, doodling stick figures and turning in half assed assignments so he could get the C and move on. Brendon, on the other hand, was one of the those highly involved kids who stayed after school to ask for advice and get help and ended up with his final project submitted to some district wide art competition.

Maybe it's just that Jon doesn't know Brendon. If he thinks hard, they've exchanged maybe three words to each other in the last three years, but Brendon is best friends with that weird Ross kid who went on torturously long tangents during last year's philosophy class and Spencer Smith, who actually started high school as a track kid, but was lured over to the dark side and now walks around with drumsticks jammed into his pocket.

Class ends just as Mr. James is finishing pairing them up and Jon escapes from the room, ignoring Brendon's cut off, "Jon -- "

He sleeps through the math class he got shuffled into (algebra, calculus, trig, who knows? It's not like he actually needs the credit to graduate) and spends all of German staring at his hands and wishing he hadn't drained his coffee before lunch.

When he gets to his locker after the final bell, there's a post it note stuck to it.

bden  
im: piano__man_

you're not slacking on this project, walker

*

Jon has practice every day after school, but when most kids are having nice, family dinners that they just have to be home for, he's making his mother doped coffee that she barely notices anyway, and sneaking sips out of the hip flask that masquerades as a water bottle he keeps in his back pocket.

"I have after school chorus until four-fifteen," Brendon's saying, and they're talking on the phone, because there was one night, three months ago, when Jon was so wasted he threw his laptop out the window.

It wasn't one of his more shining moments.

"I have practice until five," he says, lying back in his bed and throwing a bouncy ball Mike got him once against the wall.

It's repetition, and it would drive his mother crazy if she weren't passed out for the evening.

It's barely six.

"Then," Brendon continues, like he hasn't even heard Jon at all. He probably hasn't. Brendon's "people" don't really care what non-members have to say. "I have art club until six. After that I'm free."

Jon wishes he had something to conflict with that.

He doesn't.

"I don't have anything," he says, wincing as he scratches his head. This project is going to kick his ass, and if it doesn't, Brendon seems like the kind of art kid who would try.

"Awesome." Brendon mutters, sounding like it's anything but. Finally, something Jon can relate to. He scratches his head again, hanging backwards off the bed so that he's seeing everything upside down. "Is Thursday good? I'm, uh. I have to be at Spencer's by like, seven? But there's no art club so maybe we can go when you get out of practice, we can head over to the museum?"

It's on the tip of Jon's tongue to say, I have to meet my dealer by seven. It's the truth, but he doesn't. Brendon doesn't need any more ammo against him.

"Yeah." Jon's not good with words, he never has been. "Yeah. Fine. I have shit to do after, but we can check out the art and then split."

Brendon makes a noise low in his throat, and it sounds like annoyance, but Jon's not really sure what he was expecting. They're not friends, it's not like Brendon didn't know Jon's only taking the class for the stupid fucking credit.

Art escapes him, and Brendon Urie escapes him more.

He doesn't particularly care about either.

"Walker, seriously," Jon's never been the world's most visual guy, but he gets the most vivid image of Brendon leaning against a wall, phone pressed against his ear, the fingertips of his free hand pinching at the skin of his nose. "This is a huge project. I need you to -- "

"I'll show up, I'll fucking smile, Urie, I'll let you run me in circles, I'm fucking used to that. Don't think you're gonna make me like this though. I'm working towards a C. A C will pass me, get me the fuck out of this school and this town and I'll never have to come back. I won't fail, Urie. I can't."

Brendon is silent, and Jon waits for long minutes, letting the quiet seep into his skin. Brendon doesn't say a word and Jon ends the call.

*

There's a small art museum downtown that stays open late on Thursdays and Saturdays; Mr. James knows the curator or some shit and their first assignment is to get their asses down there in partners sometime in the first month of school and just look around, "absorbing the beauty and nuance of the pieces."

At three to six, according to his watch, Jon's walking out of the locker room, hair and skin damp from the shower, in loose sweats and a zipped up jacket. They were running drills all fucking afternoon and he's sore through his skin and muscle and bones, ache pulsing in his joints and a throbbing behind his eyes and he really wants to fucking walk home, pop a Xanax, and veg out until he has to meet his dealer.

Brendon's sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, iPod plugged into his ears, foot tapping along with the beat of whatever song he's listening to.

He's got a stripe of red paint caked onto the skin across his knuckles and black shit (charcoal, Jon thinks is the word, but he's not sure) lining his fingernails. Jon still has dirt caked under his and it's a little funny that it looks the same.

Fuck, he needs to be stoned.

"Hey." Jon bumps his knee into Brendon's side and gets a little stab of guilty amusement when he jumps, yanking out a headphone and shooting Jon a look. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"Yeah." Brendon stands and fishes keys out of his pocket. "Fine. Let's go."

Brendon drives a piece of shit hatchback, splashed in half a dozen different colored paints with rust eating away at the side panels and a trash bag taped over one of the back windows. There are words in nine or ten different handwritings on the bumper in lieu of stickers. Most have scraped away to illegibility and the ones that are left seem to be inside jokes (Bden, where's your technicolor dream coat?) that Jon doesn't even bother trying to decipher.

They drive the ten minutes in silence, Brendon humming along the radio and Jon scraping his thumbnail against the battered skin of his cuticles and staring at the minutes sliding by on the clock. Fuck, he should have said he had something to do or blown Brendon off.

"You're not skimping out on this project," Brendon says, apropos of nothing, except an apparently undiscovered ability to read minds, and Jon shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He's not addicted or anything like that, he's just kind of a messed up bitch when he doesn't get it and life sucks for everyone he comes in contact with.

"Wasn't planning on it," Jon replies a beat too late and Brendon sighs, muttering inaudibly under his breath.

They park on the street a block or two down from the museum and walk in distant silence, two feet of space between them on the sidewalk. The lady at the admittance desk asks to see their IDs and she waves them through ("I can't make you pay for something like that, so I worked something out. Look, boys and girls, no excuses not to go.").

"Let's make this quick," Jon huffs. He hurts.

Brendon glares and set off toward one of the wings.

Jon trails behind Brendon the entire forty-fucking-five minutes they tediously shuffle their way through each of the rooms. It's fucking torture, looking at the same three things painted again and again in almost the same ways and, to top it off, Brendon passes by the small photography wing, which is the only thing Jon's even remotely interested in.

At a quarter 'til, Jon elbows Brendon in the side. "We need to go. I have somewhere I have to be at seven."

Brendon jerks his eyes from a fucked up painting of a dude. "We're not done yet."

"I don't give a shit. I have to be somewhere."

"Fuck that, this is our grade."

Jon glares and tension snaps into Brendon's body as he turns on his heel and stalks toward the front entrance.

Whatever. He doesn't care.

*

"Here?" Brendon asks, eyeing the bridge carefully. "I can't see five feet in front of the car with the fog so thick and you want me to drop you off under a bridge?"

Jon doesn't say anything, just keeps his fist wrapped around the door handle.

Brendon makes a noise low in his throat, but he stops a foot later, idling, not even bothering to park. "If you die out there, Jon Walker, and I fucking have to do this project all by myself? I'll bring you back from the dead just to kick your ass."

Jon doesn't even have the energy to argue with that statement, just pushes out of the car, slamming the door and making a lot more noise than he'd actually expected to.

Cash comes out of the mist as soon as Brendon's car rumbles away, and Jon doesn't even spare him a backwards glance. Cash is a few grades behind him, hair cropped close to his skull with tattoos peeking out from every visible patch of skin.

"You're late," he says, and he shouldn't be intimidating, fuck, he isn't intimidating, but he has what Jon needs. He's more dangerous than he has any right to be.

"It's not even seven," Jon mumbles, and it isn't, it's barely 6:50. Cash's face remains impassive, and he's a few inches shorter than Jon, but his shoulders are hunched and he's got the menacing look down to a tee.

"I'm being easy on you this time," he says. "You're a good customer and you never give me problems. The next time you're late, though? I won't wait around."

Jon has a lot of experience with dealers, Mike's first, then his mother's, friendly looking men in white lab coats, horned rimmed glasses high on their noses, who looked responsible. They didn't look like guys who would take hundreds of bucks from a kid, but they were.

Cash is the best he's found, which isn't saying much.

"Same?" He asks after a minute, and Jon nods, leaning against the tree Cash vacated just a minute ago. He sticks his hands in his pockets, fingering the crisp twenties folded there.

Jon bags groceries at the supermarket on Saturdays and Sundays when he's not at his dad's and would work more if practice didn't preclude that, but it's still never enough to pay for what he needs. Thankfully, his father has turned out to be the kind who tries to buy forgiveness in an obscene allowance and Jon isn't noble enough to refuse.

"Yeah." Jon tries for a smile, but the corners of his lips fall flat, unused to the motion. "You know me. It never changes."

Cash looks at him, sharp, but pulls the baggies out of his backpack and counts the pills, tongue poking out the side of his mouth.

"It's a good thing I know how fucked you are for this shit, Walker," he says, only when Jon's handed him over the money (a hundred for the weed, two hundred for the pills, barely enough to get him through the week, if he's honest).

Jon doesn't say anything, there's nothing to say.

"Same time next week?" He asks when Cash is shouldering his backpack, desperation already clawing at his chest even though he hasn't even gotten through the entirety of this week's stash yet.

"If you're not late."

Jon won't be.

*

The house is dark when Jon gets back, which used to mean that no one was home, but now it's more likely that his mom's asleep in her bedroom and Mike's down in the basement with his fucking tapes of Ren and Stimpy and Transformers.

Jon unlocks the front door and drops his backpack on the floor, baggies stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie. The basement door is still cracked open a few inches and he repeats the same routine, down the first six steps long enough to see Mike curled up on the couch in yesterdays pajama pants and tee shirt, chest moving slow and rhythmically against the static glow of the TV.

Once upon a time he would have flopped down next to Mike and bitched about Brendon until he felt better.

The stairs creak as Jon retreats to the main level, then to the second floor. His mom's bedroom door is closed and she's quiet, either asleep or keeping her sobs down to a minimum.

Jon's bedroom is a collection of his life and it doesn't seem to fit anymore. He doesn't care, but it bothers him every time he closes the door. There's baseball wallpaper along the top of the walls from when he was ten and posters of his favorite football players, trophies and medals and shit from pee wee leagues and even a couple academic achievement awards from his first two years of high school.

He sits cross-legged on his bed and pops two of the Xanax dry. They stick uncomfortably in his throat for a moment and he has to hack out a cough after they go down.

The weed goes straight into his side table drawer.

There's a rolled joint left over from the previous week tucked down beside a busted alarm clock and he pulls it out, grabs the lighter from behind his lamp and lights up.

Jon stretches out of his bed and inhales, feeling the tension start to flood out of his body. He used to be a giggle stoner, once upon a time, when it was always a social thing with the other guys on the team and their girlfriends and the college guys their girlfriends knew.

Not anymore.

He smokes until he feels nothing, then pinches out the end with his fingers and drops it on the floor somewhere. He doesn't mean to fall asleep, but he does and wakes to gray morning light flooding into his bedroom and the low drone of his alarm clock.

*

Brendon corners him first thing in the morning, before he's gotten a chance to stop by his locker, before he's gotten any coffee in his system.

Jon's still fuzzy around the edges, still a little stoned and the Xanax hasn't had a chance to kick in yet.

"How's today after school?" He's chewing on the corner of his lip, and it's a Friday afternoon, he must know that Jon has a game. Anyone that doesn't know Jon has a game is either deaf or magically able to tune out the morning announcements.

Considering Brendon spends most of his free period split between the art and band rooms, Jon's pretty sure he counts as either of those things.

"I have a game," he says, pushing past Brendon -- or trying to. Brendon just follows him down the hallway, and stops right by Jon's locker, hovering there next to him, closer than polite society dictates.

"Jon Walker, this is forty-five percent of our final grade."

It's early. It's early and he has six hours of classes plus three hours of practice and drills, plus an hour-and-a-half (if he's lucky) of a damn football game.

All Jon wants to do is sleep.

He's not going to be able to do that. Not today.

"Urie," he says, and his voice sounds rusty, like he hasn't used it in a while. He doesn't talk to anyone outside of school, not if he can help it, and maybe that's why. He wonders if anyone at home would notice if he just didn't come back; wonders if he can even call the place that anymore or if it's merely a roof and walls, people living inside it who don't know each other at all. "I have to go to this game, because I have to go to every fucking game. I can stop going to class, as long as I keep up a C average, I don't have to go home," he spits out the word like it's something he doesn't recognize. It wouldn't be far from the truth. "But I have to go to every game. I have to sit there," he drops his voice, jabbing a finger against Brendon's chest because he's still standing too close. "Even if I don't give a shit about this school, or about fucking football, I have to sit there and I have to work my ass off and I have to play, because if I don't, I can kiss getting out of this town goodbye."

It's about as much as he's said all month combined but Brendon doesn't look impressed. Brendon barely even looks moved.

"I really don't give a fuck about football. I actually really like this class," Brendon is saying, but when Jon looks in his general direction, Brendon's face is swimming in front of his.

The scary part is how very used Jon is to his mornings going like this.

"I don't." He mumbles, slamming his locker closed without grabbing the books he needs for first blocking and starting to head down the hallway.

History is first anyway, and the teacher likes him.

She'll let him sleep if he coughs convincingly and says he needs to rest up for the big game, the first of the season. She has a Lions sticker taped on the inside of her desk that matches the one on the inside of Jon's locker.

"Jon!" Brendon calls his name, and he can hear the exclamation point at the end of it. Jon doesn't stop and he doesn't turn around, not even once.

*

The day passes in fits and starts.

He's in history, watching a movie on the Civil War with dramatic reenactments and a voice over actor that sounds vaguely familiar and then -blink- he's forking over a pair of crumpled dollar bills to the hair-netted woman behind the cash register in the lunch line and holding a tray with a stale cheeseburger, wilted fries, and a carton of orange juice.

It's weird, but not unusual and Jon eats at a table with Bill and Butcher, Gabe and Nate, Ryland and Alex. They're all in athletics in some capacity; Bill and Ryland run, Gabe, Ryland, Butcher and Alex swim, and Nate's on the football team with Jon. They've been his buddies since middle school and when the whole gay thing happened, they were the ones who got awkward and shuffled their feet, but didn't actually go anywhere.

That could possibly be because William's preference seems to be sexual, sans prefix. He'll sleep with anything that moves (and probably things that don't, if pushed) and he has clever fingers and a sinful mouth.

Jon knows.

"You ready for the game?" Nate asks. He's a sophomore, young and still awed that he made Varsity, wearing a school tee shirt and grinning.

Maybe Jon used to get that excited, he can't remember. Somewhere along the way football became a means to an end (getoutgetaway) and stopped being a hobby. Apparently Jon isn't one of those people who can enjoy his work.

"Raring to go," Jon says and it's funny that no one picks up the sarcasm.

He zones out of the conversation, closes his eyes and sees pictures floating behind his eyelids until Bill elbows him in the side. "Dude, lunch is over in ten minutes, where the hell have you been, space cadet?"

Good question.

Jon laughs and jokes, if a beat off from everyone else, as he dumps his tray full of uneaten food in the garbage can and heads toward the rows of the doors that lead back into the rest of the school. People look at them sidelong, which is kind of fucking hilarious, because Jon somehow fell in with the popular crowd when he wasn't looking.

Brendon's laugh comes out of nowhere and almost makes him trip.

He's sitting with a bunch of the weird art kids at another table, sketchbook flipped open, doodling something while Mikey Way looks over his shoulder and points, smiling crookedly.

Jon doesn't care that Brendon doesn't look, it just seems a little weird.

*

Jon remembers being a kid, younger than young, settled on the floor in between Bill and Mike, both parents on the couch, staring intently at the television, yelling and catcalling, ingraining football, and the love of it, into Jon's soul.

"You'll play," his dad said, palm comforting as he petted Jon's head. Jon had wanted to play more than anything else in the entire world.

At that point, Bill was in Pee Wee, coming home mud-covered and soaked, grinning harder than Jon had ever seen him.

Their dad had always been proudest of Bill.

Nate says, "Hey, Jonny, I'm heading in your direction. I can drop you by your house if you need a ride. I've got to grab my retainer anyway." He grins a little sheepishly as he shrugs. "Can't play without it."

Jon doesn't really want to go home, not when there's a great chance his mother will still be in bed and Mike probably hasn't moved an inch off the couch. Unlike normal days, they have over an hour of free time between the end of school and practice, and Jon was planning on spending it napping in the bleachers, but his bed is more comfortable by a long shot.

"Sure," he says, and he tries to smile, because he and Nate have been friends since the Navarros moved from Georgia and Nate's never been anything but good to him.

Nate's car isn't much, a little white Honda made before either of them were born complete with roll-down windows and a tape deck. It takes about thirty tries to start in the morning, puffs out cold air in the winter months and hot in the summer and Jon's pretty sure Nate loves his car more than he loves anything else on the planet, more than he loves football, even, and in a town like Wilmette, statements like that are dangerous.

"Do you want me to wait around and drive you back?" Nate asks when they're stopped in front of Jon's house, the car idling but not parked. While the details of how severely Jon's family had unraveled when his dad left aren't public fodder, it's pretty much standard practice that no one comes over anymore.

Jon can't find it in himself to complain. "Nah," he says as he slides out of the passenger's seat as he pounds on the roof in thanks. "I'm just gonna nap real quick, and then I'll jog back." Nate doesn't look convinced, bottom lip tucked under his teeth.

"You sure?" Nate's blinking at him and smiling slow, like if he just pushes in the right spot, Jon will change his mind.

Jon's not going to change his mind. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I'll see you at practice, man." Nate nods as he reverses out of Jon's driveway, checking his mirrors responsibly before disappearing out onto the street.

It's more exhausting than he remembered, putting on a face and putting on a show, smiling when he's supposed to and laughing at the right jokes.

Nate's never made him feel worse for it, but the kindness in his eyes has a limit and Jon can't afford to find out what happens when he comes to that point.

He lets himself into the house quietly even though a parade of elephants could have come in with him and neither his mother or Mike would have been the wiser.

Jon collapses on his bed without even bothering to take off his shoes. He falls asleep with his sunglasses still perched on his head.

He misses practice.

*

Jon wakes up from dreams that are blurry shapes and muted noises, not nightmares, but somehow just to the left of unsettling. Even so, he feels better than he has in awhile, laying in bed with no ache in his bones or his head, just the lazy mellowness of recent waking.

He yawns and turns his head, blinking until the wash of red on his alarm clock focuses into actual numbers.

5:15

Jon blinks hard and prays the numbers change. They don't.

In a split second, the ease that had settled into him is gone; he flies out of bed, jamming his feet into mismatched flip flops and yanking on a sweatshirt inside out. The stairs squeak in agony as he thunders down, coming within inches of tripping on a stack of towels meant for the upstairs bathroom. Mike's in the living room, for once, looking up with the slowness of someone stuck in fog.

His bag is by the front door and he tosses it over his shoulder, scrambling through a pile of bills to find his keys. "Got a game, Mike, I'll be back later."

The sky is beginning to cloud over as he runs back toward the school, heavy, ominous clouds that threaten a game played in a downpour, sliding in the muck and coming out looking like ancient warriors and not high school students. Jon would rather be back in bed, catching up on two years worth of sleepless or chemically induced nights, but he can't.

"Ticket out," he huffs in time with his feet on the pavement. "Ticket out, ticket out."

He's winded by the time he reaches the school, never mind the actual field. The opposing team's bus sits in the parking lot and he pauses for a moment to gulp in a few breaths of air, arm braced on the back bumper. They're a mid level team and the Lions should have no problem whipping their asses and sending them back with their Bulldog tails tucked between their legs.

Jon, honestly, would rather skip the actual fucking playing and declare the inevitable without accruing bruises.

He bypasses the locker rooms and heads straight for the field, where both teams are warming up and a handful of the more dedicated fans (read: parents of players just moved up to Varsity) are already settling in with their little pads and blankets and thermoses full of coffee. The coach has on his standard windbreaker and cap, ever present clipboard tucked under his arm.

"Coach," Jon says, swallowing a gasp as he jerks to a stop, bag banging against his thigh.

The coach looks up, mouth twisted into an unhappy line. He's normally a history teacher, more likely to go off on a historically based lecture than to yell, but they've made the playoffs six years in a row, two of those years brought them the championship, and he doesn't fuck around with his teams. Jon feels heat spread across his cheeks and shame, maybe guilt, blossom in his chest.

"Nice of you to join us, Walker," the coach says, voice decidedly bland.

"I overslept, coach."

He nods once, but it turns into a shake. "I can't let you play tonight, Walker. Rules are rules. Suit up, but you're keeping the benches toasty. You're a senior in good standing and you've got a hell of a lot of potential, so I'm letting you off light. Be grateful."

Jon bows his head, the picture of shamed acquiescence, and thinks it shouldn't be relief flooding through him.

*

Jon ends up in the shower, even though it's not like he was taking any hits. He's not particularly ritualistic by nature, he doesn't have lucky boxers or shit like that, but there's something nebulous and soothing about being under the spray, and maybe he needs all the comfort he can get.

He doesn't know why he's expecting the guys to be waiting when he gets out, but they're not, and it surprises him that he's surprised.

Coach had told him to stop by his office after he was done, but when Jon swings by the equipment room, the lights in the office are off, and the door is locked. Jon knows, because he jangles the knob twice.

His hair is wet across his forehead, plastered across his ears, and he hates the feeling, but it's also the first time he's felt clean in a week, maybe longer.

It was dark when he'd gotten to the field, and it's still dark, but the air is crisp, and it feels good against his skin as he trudges home.

The house is quiet as he slips inside, but for the most part, his house is always quiet. The clock on the oven reads 11:30 and Jon has to look at it three time before the numbers actually make sense.

The room is dark, and while Jon is generally good at navigating, his foot catches on the leg of a chair, and he stumbles, palms slapping against the wood of the kitchen table.

There's a plate there, covered in saran wrap. Jon blinks down at it. It looks like something resembling dinner, but Mike doesn't know how to cook (and wouldn't be allowed near the kitchen utensils even he could) and his mom hasn't made a meal since Jon doesn't remember when. Months, probably.

Someone stuck a sticky note to the top and Jon peels it off : two minutes in the microwave on high, mom.

A part of Jon wishes he were hungry.

He peels off the saran wrap and tips the contents of the plate into the trashcan beside the counter. It's slightly burned pork chops and limp fries and something green, maybe peas or carrots, and maybe it looked good coming out of the microwave, but now it looks congealed.

Jon rinses the plate and sets it in the dishwasher, does his nightly check of Mike (he's passed out on the couch underneath a sleeping bag), then slips up the stairs to his room and tries to sleep, tumbling through fitful dreams that could be nightmares.

*

Every other weekend and last Thanksgiving (probably this one too, if the universe has anything to say about it), Jon gets schlepped an hour-and-a-half away to spend two mind-numbing days with his dad, Sindi and newly acquisitioned baby brother Logan.

Jon's not really much for babies, but even at six months, Logan is pretty much the shit. He gurgles whenever Jon's in the room, smiles at Jon when no one else does, and now that he's learned to sort of bustle himself along, will pull himself to where Jon's sitting, and just pet at his leg with his tiny, chubby little fingers.

Jon's pretty much a goner, it's true.

Logan has the benefit of not asking anything from Jon, other than to play with his keys and suck on his knuckles, maybe to use Jon's shoulder as a convenient place to nap. Jon maybe likes those stretches the best, when he can lie on the couch with Logan asleep on his chest, making these contented little noises that are better than any lullaby.

Most of the time, it's just the pair of them and Sindi. His dad has to work more hours to pay child support on Jon, which is funny in a weird way, and alimony to his mom, not to mention keeping Sindi and Logan in a manner to which they have become accustomed.

Jon has nothing against Sindi, it's just. She was his babysitter. It's weird.

Saturday night she makes macaroni with ground beef and peas mixed in and it's hard for Jon to swallow. It tastes fine, but his last memory of eating the same thing involves his favorite Power Ranger plate from when he was nine or ten and Sindi wearing tee shirt from Jon's high school. Her hair was longer then, in braids that hug down over his shoulders when she bent down to spoon out another helping.

They don't say much, which is fine by Jon. He wouldn't find the right words anyway.

His dad stays home on Sunday. "So, Jon, I was thinking maybe you and me could go and do something fun today. You know, a little bit of father/son bonding."

Jon's sitting cross-legged on the couch with Logan on his lap, batting his tiny fists at the strings of Jon's hoodie. His father looks at him, cautious hope written in his face, and Jon, well, he still has to live with his mom and Mike and he just doesn't give a shit anymore. "I have homework."

Which is only half a lie.

That night, his dad takes Sindi out. "Watch Logan. We'll be back late."

It's retaliation, Jon supposes as he hefts Logan onto his hip, watching them put on their coats. Sindi runs through a verbal checklist, which is weird. Jon's mother does the same thing before she leaves the house. Keys, purse, wallet, phone. They both kiss Logan goodbye and Sindi hesitantly waves to Jon, though his dear old dad doesn't.

"Logan," Jon murmurs once the door's closed. "Our dad is kind of an asshole."

Logan's a good kid and an easy baby. He falls asleep on Jon's shoulder a little after nine and only fusses for a minute or two when he gets transferred into his crib at the end of is parents' bed. Jon bends over the cheap wooden railing and kisses his forehead, soft like peach fuzz beneath his lips.

The other bedroom is technically Jon's.

When his father moved out of the house, he pulled Jon into a hug and swore that Jon would have a bedroom wherever he ended up. "I love you, Jon, I love you and you will always have a place with me." It meant something when he was seventeen, but so much less now. A room with a bed doesn't make a bedroom.

Jon stretches out and dozes. He doesn't mean to sleep, but he does, and he misses the first half of school the next morning, spent in a silent car ride with Sindi.

*

Brendon's standing at his locker when Jon gets there, and somehow, he's not surprised. It's at the tip of his tongue to say as much, but he doesn't, just stands there, waiting for Brendon to move.

"You weren't in class this morning," he says, voice low, and devoid of emotion. Jon has a countdown going in his head for when Brendon will break, and he's already down to five when he does. "What the hell, Walker, this is fucking important."

"Family shit," Jon mutters, which is more than he meant to. Brendon doesn't flinch, he doesn't blush and he doesn't stammer. He rolls his eyes, slaps his palm down on the locker next to Jon's and says, "Who the fuck cares? Everyone has 'family shit.'"

Jon's not sure whether he wants to deck him or not. He decides on avoiding it as long as possible. Brendon is probably the only reason Jon is going to pass the stupid art history class in the first place. He doesn't need another trip to the principal's office anyway.

"What did I miss," he means for it to be a question, but he can't manage to make his voice tilt up at the end. He's fucking exhausted, even though he caught up on sleep.

"We picked our focal artist," Brendon says, and Jon nods, even though he's not precisely sure what means. Brendon looks like he's waiting for him to respond, so Jon says, "Cool."

"Mr. James thought," Brendon ducks his head for a moment, and Jon must be imagining things, because for a second, it looks like he's blushing. "It's so fucking stupid, and he didn't say that was why, but I'm pretty sure Mr. James gave us fucking Tom Conrad because we're the only two gay kids at this fucking school." He huffs, scuffing his sneaker against the dirty linoleum. "He didn't say so, but it's like, fucking obvious, right? Tom Conrad focuses on," he stops for a minute, stops speaking entirely as he rifles through his backpack for something. He pulls out a sheet and starts to read from it. "The beauty and the complexity of the male form while engaging in sexual acts. The most common thread in all of these is the innate depravity of their actions."

Brendon shoves the paper towards Jon. There's a picture of two guys fucking on it, black and white and explicit.

"Cool," Jon says again, surprised despite himself that his lips are quirking. "We get to write our project which counts as uh, forty-five percent of our final grade on porn?"

Brendon ducks his head again, and Jon's not sure if he's blushing again or if he's trying not to smile. It doesn't much matter.

"It's because we're -- "

Jon stops him, hand on his arm. They both blink, staring down at Jon's fingers curling around the soft cotton of Brendon's tee shirt. He pulls his hand away, fast, like he's been burned. "I don't know about you," he mumbles, and he's ducking his head too, staring at the ground between his flip flops and Brendon's lurid red sneakers. "But I'm not anything."

Brendon gapes at him, but Jon just shrugs. "If the teach wants me to stare at pictures of dicks for the next six weeks, I don't think I can find it in myself to complain." He raises a brow at Brendon, and Brendon rolls his eyes, but when Jon starts to walk, Brendon falls into step with him.

Jon's throat feels dry. He doesn't say another word.

*

One of the benefits of having a local artist (who graduated from their high school at some point in the moderately distant past) is that, instead of just looking at his work online, Brendon and Jon are lucky enough to be able to go to his studio and actually have a conversation with the man.

Or so Mr. James says.

Jon personally sees it as another lost afternoon, which is just exactly what he needs, and puts it off all the way through Thanksgiving break (spent with his father and Sindi, just like he expected, though half the time he was on the phone with his mom while he father glowered at him from the table) before Brendon corners him. "Swear to God, I will tell Mr. James you're slacking and dump you on your ass."

In all honesty, Jon's less worried about failing than he probably should be. He got a couple calls from different college talent scouts and, barring some disaster like a blown knee or shit, he's set.

"You could always go without me, if you're so worried," Jon counters, but without heat. Brendon, for all that Jon's still fairly certain that he doesn't like him, is a half decent guy.

"Fuck you." Brendon rolls his eyes. "I called Conrad. He said he can put aside all of next Friday afternoon just for us. Apparently he was Mr. James's student, which, you know, is a little weird, but anyway, he's done this before. He said he'll show us around, give us a little bit of an introduction, and then we're supposed to look at the works alone and write down our impressions."

Next Friday Jon is supposed to be heading to his father's house.

"Yeah, I'll be there."

They meet at Brendon's car after school. Somehow, accidentally, they managed to develop a rhythm. Their shit gets chucked into the backseat, amid torn pages of discarded sheet music, CD cases, and rumpled hoodies covered in paint. Brendon plugs in his iPod, but Jon plays DJ, flipping through the thousands of songs with no rhyme or reason as to what Brendon's favorite music is.

"One iPod should not have the complete works of the Vitamin String Quartet, the original broadway cast recording of Mamma Mia, Tim McGraw, and Korn. It doesn't make logical sense." Jon scrolls through the artist list, half of which he's never even heard of.

Brendon shrugs. "I personally believe all music is worthwhile."

Jon settles on a playlist titled "R and S" (a lot of sixties stoner rock) and leans back in the seat to doze the rest of the drive there.

Tom Conrad's studio is in the trendy part of town, in what looks like an old warehouse on the outside, but has been converted into artist spaces and lofts on the inside. Standing on the sidewalk, breath misting out, Jon thinks that, if he had to stay in Illinois, he wouldn't mind if he could live in a place like this. The red brick of the building is scarred and stained, but it gives the place character instead of making it look dirty.

The front door creaks when they open it and slams shut when a resounding bang when they let go.

There's a bank of mailboxes on one wall and a little intercom beside a closed door. Brendon walks over, skims the list of names and punches one. A loud beep sounds, then a voice, distorted and crackling from static. "Hello?"

"Hi, I'm Brendon. Brendon Urie with Jon Walker. We're here for the art project."

"Right, right, right. Come on up."

Another buzz sounds alongside the clack of the door unlocking. Brendon pushes it open and holds it for Jon.

"Such a gentleman, Urie."

"Bite me, Walker."

Conrad's studio in on the fourth floor, but there's an old service elevator just inside the door with the battered piece of yellow paper taped the sliding door. it sticks. if you get stuck, scream real loud and someone will come and get you. Jon hopes someone just has a fucked up sense of humor, but that doesn't seem overly likely.

"Come on," Brendon says. "Naked dicks await."

He pulls open the door to the elevator and they both step inside. "Oh, goodie."

*

Tom Conrad is, well.

He's nothing like Jon was expecting, but then, Jon doesn't actually know if he was expecting anything, so. The fact that he's not a flaming queer with flared jeans, a tight tee shirt and a lisp comes as sort of a shock, and even after a year of being "out", Jon still has to catch himself, sometimes, has to remind himself that if not okay, it's fine, and at least he doesn't have to lie anymore.

"You must be Brendon," Tom Conrad says, and that's how Jon thinks of him, full name full stop, because even though he's never seen a thing this guy has done, he's a real, honest-to-Christ photographer. He does it for a living, and Jon may have never admitted it out loud before, but if he were to pick a perfect profession, photography would probably be it. "Come on in." His voice is low, gravelly almost, and he's barefoot, beer in hand.

He must live in the studio, because if Jon cranes his neck a little, he can just see an unmade bed through a doorway, hardwood floors and whitewashed walls.

Brendon's already asking questions, head bent over his notepad, glasses sliding down his nose. Jon's not listening, he doesn't bother. It's not like the words will make sense to him anyway.

He walks around the gallery slowly because he's never been inside a place like this before. Jocks aren't typically supposed to like art, and while he's never pretended to understand the intricacy of brushstrokes, he's always been fascinated.

"If I remember correctly," Tom Conrad drawls, tipping his beer towards Jon with a grin. "I shouldn't really be here while you guys do this." He waves his hand around vaguely. "I've got an appointment with a client anyway." Jon notices how Brendon's eyes light up, and he wonders why that is, but doesn't ask. It's none of his business anyway.

Tom leaves in a pair of flip flops -- even though the wind chill outside is in the low teens, a heavy black peacoat and worn jeans. He's still holding his beer.

"No need to lock up," he says, looking straight at Jon like he knows something about him, something secret. "No one can get into the building without the passcode anyway."

Brendon nods at him like this is Very Important Knowledge, but Jon just keeps his head down, looking at the hundreds of photographs mounted on the walls.

He doesn't know why he's surprised that they're beautiful.

*

Oddly enough, it's Brendon who has to tap Jon on the shoulder. "It's getting late, dude, we should go."

Jon, for all that he has next to no interest in art as a whole, has to struggle to take his eyes away from the prints on the wall. Not in a perverted way, even though they are vastly shots of naked guys doing various things with a couple chicks scattered in for variety. Tom Conrad does this thing, this weird thing, turning their bodies into something more than flesh and bone and it's sensual, but it's not overt.

He doesn't have to right words to describe it and he hates that, a little, but he wants to sink into the pictures, the shadows and highlights, and never leave.

"Right." Jon glances out the window. The sun's beginning to set, casting the sky in a muted shade of purple. "We should."

Brendon closes the cover on his notebook and slides it into his messenger bag. Jon folds up his notes, written on the back of a yellow sheet of paper that was a handout for some other class in a former life and tucks it into the front pocket of his backpack, where the important shit goes.

Tom told them they didn't need to worry about locking up, so they don't, but they do make sure to slide the door shut and listen for the click of the latch sliding into the place. The metal is cool beneath Jon's palms, the whole building in on the cold side, and he has to jam his hands into his hoodie pocket as they walk back to the service elevator.

"What did you think?" Brendon presses the button. "You seemed pretty into it."

Jon shrugs, cheeks coloring. "It was, like, I don't know. Beautiful."

Brendon's smile is tamped down around the edges, but still brilliant and Jon half wants to cuff him hard on the back of the head and half wants to ask him if he, in his infinite weird art kid wisdom, knows the right words to describe Tom Conrad's photography.

The elevator clanks to a stop and Brendon pulls open the door. "Yeah, he's kind of amazing."

Jon snorts out a laugh. "So, does that mean you're not pissed at Mr. James anymore?"

"Not at all." Brendon steps inside with a half smile and pulls it shut. "I'm still fucking offended, but at least it worked out well. I've seen a couple of his prints before, but that that many. He's a genius."

"Like Dexter." Jon presses the down button and leans against the bars.

"The serial killer?"

"No, the one with the lab and the older sister. Didi. Did you not watch cartoons as a child?"

Brendon throws up his hands. "Yeah, of course I did. Just, you know, I have super religious parents so I tended to get stuck with the animated version of Bible stories and you know, Jesus Crew type shows. Praise the Lord."

Jon laughs, unintentionally, and Brendon blushes. "Are you serious?"

"Dead serious."

They're both smiling, feeling more at ease with each other than Jon can remember.

The elevator groans to a stop, somewhere between the second and third floors.

*

After screaming themselves hoarse for the first twenty minutes, after frantic calls with their cellphones to no avail (it's not like Jon was paying attention, or that he cares about what Brendon does in his free time, but he notices how Brendon's head ducks, phone pressed tight in his ear, as he stands as far away as he can, whispering things Jon can't precisely decipher and doesn't particularly care to), they settle quietly in their separate corners.

Jon shrugs off his hoodie, balling it up and pressing it against the wooden slats of the wall, using it as a pillow as he stretches out wide. He rests his hands on his stomach and is about to close his eyes when he sees Brendon open his own.

"What," he says, sitting up a little. He's getting a crick in his neck. Brendon shakes his head, bangs falling into his eyes.

Brendon is silent for a minute, longer. "You're getting comfortable?" They've been in there for longer than an hour and closer to three. Jon shrugs.

"Who the fuck knows how long we're going to be in here, man?" Jon asks, and he settles back again. His hoodie is lumpy, but just lumpy enough to remind him of his pillow at home. "Might as well be comfortable."

Brendon arches a brow. He doesn't look convinced. "Jon Walker," he says, evenly. "What crawled up your ass and decided to shoot out sunshine?"

Jon would have to concentrate really hard to keep from laughing, and he really doesn't have that kind of energy. He snorts a little, rubbing at his eyes, and says, very honestly, "When I went to pee? I popped a Xanax." He shrugs. It's not like he's ashamed. "They generally make me want to kill the world less."

"You want to kill the world?" Brendon slides down the wooden slats and he ends up sitting with his chin propped up against his ridiculously ripped black jeans. They're skin tight, and still manage to be loose on him. Jon's fairly positive that Brendon doesn't have enough body mass for them to actually cling to.

Jon shrugs when Brendon makes questioning eyes at him, shoulders rising and falling. "Sometimes? It's not really a concrete thing. It's not like football players go to school with Uzis."

Brendon looks horrified, and then more so when a laugh is startled out of him. "Football players usually aren't gay, either." If his voice were soft, or anything but normal, even, Jon would probably deck him. As it is, he shrugs again, and shifts against his makeshift pillow.

"You would be surprised, Urie. All those naked dicks in the shower? Snapping towels? Smacking asses? It's a total homoerotic atmosphere." Brendon eyes look like they're going to pop out of his head, and Jon laughs again, because it would be too much effort not to. "At least that's what Will says, anyway. Fuck whatever that means. He'll fuck anything that moves, though, so I don't know why I'm the one that gets funny looks."

Brendon's smiling. Jon's not sure when it happened, and how he didn't notice, because it's not like there's anything else in the goddamn elevator to look at, but Brendon's smiling, and objectively, Jon can say that it's a nice smile, big and all encompassing, lighting up Brendon's entire face.

Objectively, Jon can say that.

After a minute, Brendon says, "Fuck this, and yanks his own hoodie off, balling it up behind his head. It's lavender and thin and Jon's pretty sure he saw Sindi wearing the same one. It's nowhere near as substantial, in the lumpy pillow department, as Jon's is. He tries not to laugh at that. "Fuck this, okay. Princess Leia, Luke, or Han?"

*

After two hours they've determined that Jon has a thing for hero complexes ("You'd bang Indiana Jones, Han Solo, Will Turner, and Dirty fucking Harry." "I. Just. Bite me.") and Brendon's eyes turn off when someone has any kind of musical talent ("Elton John, are you fucking with me? He's old enough to be your, like, grandfather!" "Fuck you, he'd sing to me.").

It's dark in the elevator, so they keep their phones out, though Jon's running on a bar and counting and Brendon's has already switched over to power saver mode. They're both still lacking service and Jon is beginning to sincerely hope Tom comes into the studio on weekends or it's going to be a really fucking long two days.

"Okay." Brendon shifts on his side. "Here's one."

"Hit me." Jon, oddly enough, is feeling fairly good. If much more time passes he's probably going to end up falling asleep.

"What did your parents say when they found out about the gay?"

Or not.

For a long moment, Jon seriously considers telling Brendon to go fuck himself and curling on his side facing away. Brendon's looking at him with oddly vulnerable eyes, though, like he's genuinely curious about the answer. "I didn't tell them." Jon shrugs. "I made out with a kid on the freshman team the summer before junior year and he flipped out and told a couple buddies, who told the rest of the team. William told his mom, who asked my mom how she was taking it."

"Ouch." Brendon flinches. "That's rough."

Jon shrugs. "She and my dad sat me down that night and asked and lying seemed kind of a pointless, so I told them the truth. And, well, honestly a lot of other shit happened right after that and me liking dick was the least of everyone's worries. You?"

"A little more dramatic." Brendon offers up a smile, tinged bitter at the corners. "I, um, lost my virginity that same summer, actually, and after that I realized for sure that girls just weren't ever going to do it, so I told my parents. They, um, offered to send me to a Love in Action camp. But only if I wanted to go."

Jon growls. It has nothing to do with Brendon specifically. Just, no one should ever be offered that. Even Brendon. "You said no?"

"I told my dad he could go fuck himself." Brendon blushes. "There was a fight, of course, and I don't know. We just don't acknowledge it now."

Amen. Jon knows how that goes.

They lapse into silence again. Jon checks his phone. No service and the battery bar has turned an alarming shade of orange. His mother and Mike won't notice him missing; he wonders if Brendon's will and, if they do, whether it'll be cause for alarm. You never can tell with families.

"I have another question."

"Shoot," Jon says around a yawn.

"Why pop pills?" Brendon's chewing on his bottom lip. "Like, I get not wanting to kill the world. I mean, why do you want to kill the world in the first place?"

"That," Jon says slowly. "Is a really, really fucking long story."

Brendon rolls onto his stomach, close enough for Jon to feel heat radiating off his side. "Well, I mean, it's not like we're pressed for time. I don't normally get home 'til late, so my parents won't officially start freaking out until I'm not there tomorrow morning."

Jon inhales and exhales, counts the length of each action and closes his eyes. "My parents got divorced and it was nasty. My dad married my old baby sitter and had another baby. My one older brother tried to kill himself with his little girl alone in the house and now he's so depressed and fucked up we have to hide all the silverware. My other brother took off for parts unknown because he couldn't cope. And, like, fuck. Everyone relies on me."

Brendon sucks in a breath, but says nothing, just fleetingly lay a hand on Jon's elbow.

*

 

Jon wakes up with his mouth pressed against Brendon's forehead. It's not the worst way he's ever opened his eyes. He starts to pull away, startled, because his dick is hard against Brendon's stomach.

"Mm," Brendon mumbles, licking at his lips and opening his eyes slowly. "Mm, hey, Jon Walker, hi. What are you doing in my bedroom?"

The soothing effect of the Xanax has worn off, but Brendon's smiling at him a little soft, the way he must really be in the mornings.

"Not in your bedroom, Urie," he says, pulling away and pushing himself against the wall. His skin feels tight, and they're still stuck in the fucking elevator.

Brendon blinks, and then he nods, rubbing his hand across his eyes. "Right. Elevator. We're still stuck." He looks like a little kid, and Jon doesn't have much experience with them, not much since he was one. Logan is too young to have thoughts and feelings; all he has is moods, and if Jon pets his back and makes sure the milk is warmed when he sucks on his bottle, all is well in the world.

He's pretty sure Brendon isn't that easy. He's also pretty sure that twenty-four hours ago, he didn't care.

"Does your phone have any battery left?" He asks, and Brendon peeks down at his phone and shakes his head. "You?"

Jon doesn't bother responding, just turns and settles down ahead, stretching his arm out, and pressing his face against the skin there.

"It's really fucking late," he says, quiet. It's been a few minutes since either of them have spoken. "It must be. Do you have to be home?" It's not like he cares.

Brendon shakes his head, and then he's lying back down too. Jon doesn't think about the heat radiating between them, or how only half of Brendon's hair is mussed.

"I told you." Jon mutters, and there's something hard and harsh coiling in his gut, something ugly that he can't put a name to. He has another Xanax in his pocket, but it's going to have to last him until at least he gets home. There are only four more, and they have to last him until Thursday. Shit.

"It's not my fault the elevator got stuck, Jon Walker," Brendon says, and he's not moving away, he's still not fucking moving away.

"I -- "

Brendon kisses him. Brendon Urie fucking kisses him.

There aren't choruses of angels or whatever-the-fuck. It's dry lips pressed against each other, and breaths mingling, and Jon's not as hard as he was when he fist opened his eyes, but Brendon's thumbs are just lightly touching his cheeks and he can't breathe.

"Jon," Brendon whispers, and Jon hates that he closes his eyes, hates that he leans forward to press his forehead against the bare skin of Brendon's collarbone.

His body doesn't feel like his own, although he can't remember the last time it did. He's wound tight, and Brendon still hasn't moved his hands.

"I -- " the word comes out on a cough, and Brendon nods, like he knows what Jon's trying to say. Jon doesn't even know what he's trying to say, but Brendon pushes the palm of his hand against Jon's stomach, sliding it down the front of his jeans, past the resistance of his waistband, his belt, slipping his fingers through the folds of Jon's boxers, wrapping around his dick.

Jon hisses, and bucks up into Brendon's hand. His skin is dry, palm calloused, and it shouldn't feel good, this is fucking Brendon Urie, but Jon doesn't tell him to stop.

He doesn't think he could.

"Come on, Walker," Brendon mutters, twisting and flicking his wrist, and his tongue is poking out the corner of his mouth. Jon closes his eyes, because that, he didn't need to see.

Brendon Urie is not. He's.

Jon sets his mouth against Brendon's shoulder and comes between them.

Brendon's name is on his lips.

*

In the end, Tom ends up coming back a little before one in the morning and curses loudly enough at the elevator to wake them both up from where they've curled in separate corners, as far away from each other as possible. Brendon bangs on the bars and Tom let's out an impressive string of cursing. Jon popped the last Xanax before he fell out and says nothing.

Forty-five minutes later, the maintenance man shows up, fiddles with the gears and they creak to the second floor. "Just take the stairs," he wheezes. "I don't know if I can get the old girl running again tonight if she gets stuck."

Tom's waiting for them by the door, eyes a little bit glassy, and Jon wishes they could trade places. He wonders what that feels like, being loose and happy, still able to smile guilelessly when you came home and find two teenagers trapped in your elevator. "Sorry about that, kids. I maybe should have waited around?" He hugs them both, fleeting.

Brendon drives. It's quiet and stilted and Jon can't seem to keep his eyes off Brendon's knuckles.

Fuck.

"Bye," Brendon says hesitantly when he pulls up outside Jon's house. Jon tries, but can't. He slams the door and shuffles up the walk, sneakers slipping against the ice clinging to the concrete.

He's an idiot and an asshole and he wants to close his eyes and open them to nothing. Or never open them again.

The thought shifts uncomfortably against his ribs.

Jon sneaks in the house and, for the first time since they brought Mike to live with them after he got out of the hospital, he doesn't sneak down the basement stairs and check to make sure he's okay. Jon has always suspected that he's not half as strong as people think and now he knows for sure and he's tired, so fucking tired, of fighting and holding his shit together.

He strips off his clothes and chucks them into the laundry basket at the end of his bed. It's already overflowing and his hoodie tumbles off and lands on the floor with a quiet thump.

"Fuck."

Somehow, he never ends up putting on pajamas and falls asleep naked, burrowed underneath his blankets.

His dreams, what he can remember of them, walk the fine line between nightmares. He's running down a hallway, both reaching for something and trying to escape something else, but the floor is moving beneath his feet and he's not going anywhere. Someone, several someone's, yell his name, but it's black and he can't see and then he's falling, fucking falling forever.

He wakes up late, which he really needs to stop fucking doing, throws up sweats and jogs to school with his backpack banging against his hips.

William's waiting at his locker, alternately flirting with Maja Iversson, the smoking hot foreign exchange student with legs that go for days and Travis McCoy, the fucking ridiculously chill student teacher. "Hey, Jon Walker." Will nearly slides away from his adoring fans (Jon snorts at the thought) and slings a companionable arm around his shoulders. "Where the hell have you been?"

Letting Brendon fucking Urie jerk him off.

"Busy." Jon dials open his locker and pulls out his art history stuff. He should just ditch the fucking class and save himself the aggravation.

"Well, don't be busy this Friday. Pre-holiday party at Gabe's."

Jon nods and smiles, yeah, sure, of course he'll be there, where the fuck else would he be.

Brendon's already at their table when Jon walks in, writing hunched over a notebook in what looks like purple pen. He's got on a blue hoodie with a pattern of headphone and skinny jeans, ridiculous fucking sneakers and what looks like honest to god fingerless gloves on his hands. Distantly Jon thinks that makes sense; his skin was chapped across his knuckles.

Jon sits, silent, and pulls out his shit, including the yellow handout he wrote his notes on.

"Hey," Brendon says and it's jarring.

He doesn't sound different. He doesn't sound like he jerked Jon off in a freezing cold elevator after they bared their souls to each other in some small way. In fact, he's smiling faintly, in the vaguely distracted way he gets when he's concentrating on something else and Jon maybe wants to hit him, a little.

"Hey," Jon says and swallows down acid.

*

Will has these legs that go on for miles. He has a mouth that doesn't quit and eyes that are just this side of mischievous. They've known each other since they were kids, lived a street apart 'til they were twelve, had parents that were college roommates, were predestined to be friends.

William was Jon's first kiss, back when moving across town was like moving to the other end of the planet, and they couldn't even fathom going to different middle schools.

"What is this, Jonny-Boy Walker," William is breathless, and Jon has him pressed down on a bench against the yellow-brick wall of the autoshop, lips sucking bruises against the milky white skin of William's collarbone. "You want to brand me? Parade me around for the world to see?"

He doesn't sound like he minds, and Jon sucks against his skin harder, more, leaving a mark that's large and blooming, that fits his mouth exactly.

"So what if I am," he asks, no inflection in his voice at all as he dips his hand into William's jeans. The fit is tight, as William's jeans are practically painted onto his skin, but Jon manages, starting a smooth, easy rhythm that comes easy to them.

Jon closes his eyes, breathes in the familiar scent of William's shampoo and William's sweat, and twists his hand, rougher than he'd expected to be. One of William's legs comes up to wrap around his waist, and it's ridiculous, a little, Will folded in on himself, Will, coiled tightly like a jack-in-the-box waiting to pop, with his long, long legs and gangly arms, all awkward proportions, and tilted hips.

Sometimes Jon thinks, I want that, the need burning in his gut, the need to fall apart and let someone else shoulder the burden, just for a minute, letting him rest for just a few seconds, just long enough for him to catch his breath.

Even in coming, Will needs him, pants against Jon's throat and keens, rutting his dick up against Jon's palm. He's begging with the quirk of his mouth, the tilt of his lashes, and how his eyes are half lidded, his pupils blown.

"Jonny," he whispers, voice ragged and low, breaking apart, right there, right in front of Jon like some sort of present that he doesn't want and can't return. "Jonny," again, and, "I need."

"Everyone fucking needs something," he mutters, even though he doesn't mean to and he twists again, relieved when Will comes against his knuckles and the hem of his own shirt.

"Shit," he mumbles, staring down at himself. "I'm gonna have to go without." He doesn't sound too upset about that, either. It's not that uncommon for William, even if it weren't after school. He noses against Jon's neck, pressing a messy kiss against his jaw. "You want," he asks, still pressed close.

Jon shakes his head. "This isn't about me, Billvy," he says, and William rolls his eyes, but doesn't try to stop him when Jon starts to pull away.

Jon's not really paying attention to where he's going as he starts walking towards the locker room, head ducked as he slides his headphones into place.

He's not really paying attention, which is probably how he manages to knock face first into Brendon, tripping over his own feet and sprawling across Brendon's.

"Fuck," he mutters, mostly because his headphones were yanked out of his ears during the fall and his iPod is lying facedown on the ground where thousands of feet have passed over, most of them with cleats. He sighs, and lifts it, wiping the face off on the leg of his jeans.

Brendon is just standing there, unabashedly staring at him. Jon feels his skin tighten, but his cheeks don't get hot, and he doesn't think he's blushed since before he hit puberty.

"Hey Urie," he mumbles, sliding his headphones in again, but keeping the volume down low. "Hey," Brendon responds, and then, "You have come on your shirt."

*

Jon genuinely has no intention of going to the party at Gabe's.

He's never really been one for intensely social situations, even before all the screws in his head started loosening one by one, and a far better evening sounds like some spiked coffee, a joint or two, and the solitude of his bedroom, listening to the faint, staticky buzz of Mike's cartoons filtering up through the vent beside his desk.

Will and Nate show up on his doorstep Friday night, both in jeans and hoodies. "You've become a fucking recluse, Jonny," Will says. "You're coming with us and mingling with your friends, whether you want to or not."

Nate smiles, rueful, and Jon grabs a hoodie draped over the back of his father's old easy chair. He's too tired to argue and he can always curl up in a spare bedroom and sleep. Will's his best friend, if he had to name a best friend, but he won't stay focused enough on Jon once they're surrounded by people to notice him slip away.

Gabe's house is lit up in every window and faintly pulsing with music when they pull up.

"Slap on a happy face," Will commands. "You worry too fucking much."

Frost crunches beneath their feet as they go up the walk, lined with brightly twinkling lights in honor of the impending holiday season. Gabe's parents, as far as Jon can remember, are on some cruise in Antigua or Argentina or something like that, but he got one too many C's on his midterms to be invited. Jon thinks it's probably a bad sign that a Christmas alone sounds vastly better than the one he has in store for him.

Will goes one way inside the door, with a hearty clap on Jon's shoulder and an admonishment to have fun. Nate gives him that same guileless smile and waves, wandering none to subtly over to the corner where Vicky (recently broken up with Gabe in an epic screaming match on the quad) is sitting with a can of Coke in one hand and a couple of girlfriends.

"Have a drink, Walker." Someone, Jon missed who, presses a red plastic cup into his hand.

Jon has a myriad of vices and drinking isn't usually one of them, but the bass of the music is throbbing painfully against his temples and the people crowded into the house are pressing claustrophobically against him; he takes a swallow and it goes down cold.

Two hours later, he's standing on Gabe's back porch in the cold, buzzed enough to not really be feeling it. Distantly, he hears the door slide open and bang shut, then William slings an arm around his shoulders and presses his face into Jon's neck.

"Where you been, Jonny, I was looking all over." He's slurring a little bit, but Jon's seen worse.

"Out here." Jon tips his cup over the railing and watches it fall, bouncing against the covered pool and settling in the snow. "Too many people."

Will laughs. "You're fucking weird, Jonny."

"I know."

"Hey." Will seals his mouth over Jon's neck and sucks. "You wanna?"

Little shocks ghost out from Jon's neck and down his spine. It's a thing, a tradition, almost. They casually escape to some deserted room in whatever house happens to be holding the party and rub off frantically against each other on top of the coats.

Jon just ... doesn't want to.

"No thanks, Will."

Will wanders away and ends up draped over a bemused Gabe's lap.

Jon and Nate steer out the car a little after one in the morning and Jon drives, dropping Nate off then William. He walks back to his house in the darkest part of the night, hands shoved in his pockets against the cold.

*

It's technically less than three weeks until Christmas break, but it feels like months, years. Jon's skin feels tight. He sees Brendon every fucking day except for weekends, and even then, it's like this thing, like he's waiting for Brendon to show up at the store.

He never does, Jon's been working at Hader's Market since he was thirteen, he'd know. It's silly to be looking over his shoulder all the time, and it's sillier the closer they get to Christmas, a week, two weeks before, when Jon's picked up more shifts (practices have ceased for the season because Coach is actually less of a hardass with the promise of home cooked pot roast looming), because people want to be home with their families and he wants to be anywhere but.

Four days before Christmas, when the aisles are packed with too many people and too little air, Jon sees him. Brendon's wearing the same pink hoodie, hood pulled up, hands balled into fists and pushing the pockets out.

He looks even tinier than usual, mixed among the crush of people moving as a sea. Jon turns, continuing to head back to the break room that moonlights as a closet. He's got a twenty-five minute break he'd been planning to sleep through and then four more hours on his feet until he gets to go home, crash with his clothes on, and come back tomorrow and do it all over again.

He's unknotting his apron when he hears someone clearing his throat, and he doesn't want to turn around, he doesn't, but the person clears their throat again, and it's Christmas, or almost. Jon prides himself on not being a complete asshole.

"Yeah," he says as he's turning, and he should have really been expecting it, because he's always expecting it, but it's still a shock to his system seeing Brendon standing there in the doorway, pink hood pulled up. "What the hell?" Jon is maybe not a complete asshole, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have the quality still in him somewhere.

Brendon doesn't even flinch. He shrugs, shoulders going up slow, and just stares at Jon like Jon's supposed to know what the hell he's doing there.

"Some people would say, 'hey'," he says, and Jon's not sure if it's possible, but Brendon looks even smaller. He rolls his eyes, and moves back into the room. Brendon follows, letting the door shut behind him.

"Hey," he says, pointedly. "What the hell?" Brendon smiles, but it looks forced, and he shrugs again, looking around the break room. It's dingy, because one of the back lights is broken, and even though there are at least five people lounging in there a day, there's a faint sheen of dust everywhere, as if the room has been forgotten, left in the past while everything else has moved forward.

"I was hungry, okay," Brendon says, no inflection in his voice at all. "I knew you worked here, and I was hungry, and I really didn't want to be at home, so." He does something with his mouth that's probably supposed to look like a smile. It isn't.

"I'm not your friend, Brendon," he mumbles, flinching just as Brendon flinches, because that wasn't what he meant to say at all, even if he'd been thinking it.

Brendon sneers when he speaks. "You don't really have very many of those." The words don't sting. He thinks they should and if he hadn't ground four Xanax into his coffee an hour ago, they probably would. As it is, he doesn't even flinch.

"Pretty perceptive of a guy who had to go to the supermarket to stay away from home. Don't have anyone's pants to stick your hand down to keep you away from the disapproving eyes of mommy and daddy?" Brendon doesn't blink. Jon thinks he should be, the words are cold, spiteful, but Brendon doesn't even look like he's affected.

Jon wants to push, to see how deeply the barbs can cut, and it makes something ugly burn at the back of his throat. Brendon takes a shuddery breath, and Jon doesn't know why, can't figure out why Brendon's cheeks are turning a light crimson.

"What're you doing?" He asks, voice soft. Jon has no fucking clue, but the break room is small, and he's got his fingers wrapped around Brendon's wrist.

"I don't," he says, or starts to, but Brendon is blinking over at him, and his eyes are round and huge, and it's not that Jon wants him, it's not anything stupid like that, it's just that he can't think of anything else.

*

The break room isn't big and it's barely ever empty and every logical thought in Jon's mind is screaming that he needs to run the fuck away before he goes tumbling down this particular rabbit hole again.

But Brendon's skin is soft beneath his palm and when Jon presses the tips of his fingers hard against the flesh, he can feel the delicate bones of Brendon's wrist and the faint throb of his pulse point, almost maddeningly steady. Brendon's breath is the only sound, a muted pant deep in his chest and Jon isn't strong, he's not, and he doesn't know what else to do.

"Jon," Brendon says, like a curse and a prayer, and fuck it. Fuck it.

Jon pulls Brendon closer and he clings to the fact that he feels no resistance, just the soft thud of Brendon's sneakers on the faded linoleum and the sudden rush of heat radiating off his body. Brendon is so stupidly warm and Jon doesn't know what that means.

He feels like he should apologize.

He presses Brendon's curled knuckles to the space below his bellybutton and meets his eyes, which is harder than it ever has been before. Brendon's pupils are just a little dilated, a little blown in the buzzing, washed out light of the fluorescent overheads. On his own, Brendon grazes the ridge of knuckles down Jon's stomach and tucks his fingers in the waistband of his jeans.

"This?" Brendon murmurs and Jon can't nod. He swallows hard, bile clawing down his throat like battery acid.

"Bren." The name slips out unintentionally and Jon hates, hates, that he can hear the desperation threaded through the syllable, begging written in the spaces between the letters.

Brendon uses his free hand to pop the fly of Jon's jeans and it's like falling over a cliff. His hand goes in deeper and he presses his face to the curve of Jon's shoulder, nipping at the skin where no one can see. Jon looks past Brendon's shoulder, to the cracked, stained mirror across the room and watches the back and forth of Brendon's shoulder, the expressions as they cross across his face, bisected by a line.

Jon presses his palms to the sides of his thighs and tries not make any sound.

The hand around his dick, Brendon fucking Urie's hand, is callused (from playing guitar, Jon thinks, or holding paint brushes and the thought of him in either activity shouldn't send more unneeded sparks across his skin).

He comes with a stifled cry, caught behind his teeth.

"I." Brendon pulls out his hand, biting down hard on his bottom lip, and yanks a wad of paper towels off the roll sitting next to the sink. He wipes off his hand and throws them away as Jon watches his throat contract as he swallows.

He's hard in his jeans and Jon should, wants to, but can't.

"I should go," Brendon says.

He turns and runs, head ducked down and Jon just barely makes it to the employee bathroom before he's on his knees, retching.

*

Oh Christmas day Jon walks into the kitchen to the sight of Mike holding a pair of scissors and very deliberately pointing them towards his wrist.

"Mike," Jon says, and his voice is desperate, low. "Mikey, you don't want to do that." Mike looks over at him, had, since the first sound, but his eyes are vacant, and his mouth is drawn into a line.

"I miss the red. It was warm." he mumbles plainly, but his grip is slack, and he doesn't resist when Jon slides the scissors out of his grip. For a moment, with Jon's hand on the small of his back, leading him back down towards his basement bedroom, Mike looks lucid. "I'm sorry, Jonny," he whispers.

Jon can feel his throat getting tight, tears scalding at his eyes, but he blinks them away when he tucks Mike back in, remembering to turn the TV on before he heads back up to the kitchen.

He doesn't mention that it's Christmas, there's no point.

Around noon, Will stops over, the tops of his cheeks pink as he pushes through Jon's back door. They're best friends, sure, but no one has been over since Mike's accident.

Jon had expected it, but it still surprises him a little, to have someone foreign standing in his kitchen, someone else seeing the unwashed dishes in the sink, and the remnants of mac &amp; cheese he'd had for dinner the night before sitting out on the counter.

To his credit, Will doesn't look different than normal. "Jonny-boy Walker," he says, and Jon's grateful he doesn't have a gift. He doesn't have gifts for anyone except for Logan, and he's pretty sure a onesie covered in Tonka trucks doesn't really count for much. "Merry fucking Christmas."

William reaches over and pulls him close, wrapping a bony arm around Jon's shoulders, and pressing his lips to Jon's forehead.

"Hey," Jon says, pulling away, just slightly, uncomfortable with how close they are, even though they've been closer. "You too."

William rolls his eyes, and Jon forgets sometimes, how perceptive he is, how much he catches, even though he pretends not to.

"Say hi to your Ma," he says, and he doesn't sound any different from normal, but somehow, his voice seems more serious, and Jon knows he means it. "Okay?" Jon nods, even though it's unlikely his mother will be awake for most of the day.

"I will," he mumbles, looking down and barely resisting the urge to scuff his sneaker across the linoleum. He can feel Will rolling his eyes, but he doesn't look up, and Will cuffs him once, on the back of the neck, before letting himself out.

There's nothing much on TV but all-day re-runs of It's a Wonderful Life (which made him cry when he was a kid, and would probably have the same effect now, if he could feel anything at all), and he goes back to bed for a while, but doesn't sleep, staring up at the watermarks on the ceiling and listening for sounds of life from his mother's room.

At five, completely of their own volition, he catches his fingers dialing Brendon's number. He could stop, he should, but he doesn't. It's Christmas though, and for normal people, that means a time for family togetherness, a dinner comprised more of left over take-out and cold pizza.

He's not expecting Brendon to pick up.

*

 

Brendon says, "I got you a Christmas present."

Brendon says, "It's stupid, I know."

Jon looks at his mother in the kitchen and Mike on the couch (Jon won't let him out of his sight for a couple of days, he can't) and says, "Do you want to come over?"

Brendon shows up in black jeans and a red hoodie zipped up to his chin. He's even got on a stupid little black beanie, tucked underneath the hood of his jacket, and the same ridiculous fingerless gloves covering his palms. There's something small and relatively flat tucked under his arm, wrapped in a page of comics from the Sunday paper.

"Hi." Brendon snuffles a little, dragging the back of his wrist across his nose.

"Hey." Jon steps back. "We can go up to my room."

Jon circles his hands around Brendon's wrist and they both flinch at the contact, even through the layers of hoodie and shirt. He wonders if Brendon has bruises from that day in the store; he wonders what it means that he hopes Brendon does. Brendon's eyes are raw, smeared with bruise colored shadows and sometimes Jon forgets that his life is not the only one that's hard.

He keeps his hand around Brendon's wrist as they climb the stairs to the second floor and slip into his room, closing the door with a soft bang.

"Here." Brendon holds out the gift and Jon accepts it with a kind of delicacy he didn't think he was capable of anymore.

"Thanks."

Jon sits down on his bed, unmade, and drags his fingers along the seams, peeling back the tape. It comes off with black designs clinging to the sticky side and Jon distantly thinks it's an interesting effect. Brendon sits down at his desk chair and pulls his legs up, tucking his knees to his chin. "It's no big deal. I just saw it downtown and. Thought of you."

The paper peels away to the back of a frame and Jon creases his brow. He sets the sheet aside and flips it over, inhales sharply. His heart stutters against his ribs.

It's a print.

It's a Tom Conrad print of a pair of clasped hands and Jon doesn't know why that makes him want to do something stupid like cry and he hates it, a little.

"I." Jon's throat is tight and he can't.

"It's fine if you don't like it," Brendon says in a rush, looking down. "I just. You liked his pictures, a lot. And I figured you could leave that one out without anyone caring."  
Jon nod and sets it on his bedside table, brushing his fingers over the glass. He hasn't gotten any other gifts. His mother likely forgot the holiday was even coming, Mike couldn't leave the house even if he wanted to. His father will likely hand him a check for twenty and tell him to go buy whatever he wants.

"Thanks." Jon inhales and looks at Brendon. "I didn't get you anything."

Brendon smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "It's okay."

*

When it's over, Jon will tell himself it was an accident. When it's over, he'll be shaking, when it's over, Brendon will mostly likely leave and he won't look back.

Jon doesn't want him to look back, doesn't want him to stay. He has no idea what he's doing, but he reaches out and touches Brendon's cheek. It's a gentle motion, but his grip is anything but, and it shocks him, how easily Brendon comes.

Their breaths are coming out harsh, and Jon ends up flat on his back against the mattress, Brendon's knees spread and straddling his waist. Brendon's hands on either side of his head. They're not even touching except for how Brendon's hips are flush against Jon's stomach.

Brendon's flicking his tongue against his bottom lip, soothing a cut, and Jon can't stop staring at the way his lips move. "What," Brendon asks, but it's not a question, and Jon can't look at him anymore, he can't. It's fucking Christmas, and he's got Brendon Urie pressed above him.

He turns away. He can't look at Brendon when he's like this, quiet and introspective. Instead he focuses on the flakes of snow batting against the window, and almost misses it when Brendon starts to shift.

Jon thinks he's going to leave, he thinks that he won't mind so much, that he doesn't want Brendon to stay. Brendon doesn't go, Brendon dips down.

His breath is hot as it coasts along the underside of Jon's throat, and Jon has to squeeze his eyes shut, even though he's not facing Brendon and Brendon can't see the look on his face. Brendon noses Jon's jaw, and Jon arches his neck, can't stop himself.

"Fuck," Brendon whispers, and Jon's not sure which, of the two of them, he's talking to. "Fuck," he says again, and then he's sinking his teeth against Jon's pulse, and Jon gets hard faster than he ever has in his entire life. "You're so fucking," he's panting against Jon's neck, fingers scrabbling against Jon's belt, the fastenings of his jeans.

He doesn't finish his thought, hissing when his fingers circle Jon's dick. His hand is as calloused as before, and his palm is dry, which should be more uncomfortable than it is. Jon tries not to moan, tries not to arch up into it, but he's failing kind of spectacularly.

"Want to fuck you," Brendon whispers, pressing kisses against the mark he'd left with his mouth, and Jon moans so loud he wouldn't be surprised if the neighbors could hear. "Jon Walker," he arches his hips up, ghosting his mouth over Jon's. Jon's shaking all over. "Jon Walker, I want to fuck you." Jon's mouth is dry, and he can't, he can't breathe.

Brendon kisses him again, twisting his hand over Jon's dick expertly. Jon whines, high in his throat, vision blacking out at the corners.

"Fuck," The curse is stretched out into more than one syllable, and he twists his hand again, nails grazing Jon's dick lightly. "Fuck," he whispers. "Please."

Jon swallows and he's shaking, he's shaking all fucking over, and he slides a hand into his pants alongside Brendon's, squeezing once around his wrist, and then draws both their hands out.

He turns over, sliding his pants halfway down his thighs. "Jon," Brendon whispers, hand tight on Jon's shoulder, squeezing and kneading lightly. "Jon, stop it."

Jon's skin tightens, something lead sinking in his stomach. He hadn't realized how much he wanted -- well, it obviously doesn't matter now.

"What," he mumbles, moving to pull his pants back up as he turns back over. He refuses to be embarrassed about this. In a month and a half he'll never have to talk to Brendon again, and three after that, they'll be graduating. It's just a few more months, in the long run, and Jon's been waiting to get the fuck out of Illinois for longer than he can remember.

"Jon," Brendon whispers, and for the first time since Jon has known him, his eyes are open, wide, and Jon can't read what's written in them, but he knows that there's something there, something people don't get to see. "Fuck, Jon, I want to," he doesn't finish, just pushes at Jon's shoulders, pushes until he's flat on his back again.

He dips his head down where his mouth had been, and wraps his lips around Jon's dick like they belong there. Jon's gotten head before, Jon's gotten head better than this, from William, from the little blonde cheerleaders that flocked around him before he'd been forced out -- he's gotten better head, sure, but none of it was like this; Brendon's eyes closed as he hums around Jon, moaning, a little, like he's really enjoying himself, like there's nowhere else he'd rather be.

"I," Jon tries to say, I'm coming, but he can't get his tongue to come unglued from the roof of his mouth. He reaches his hand out to push at Brendon's shoulder, to get him to fucking move, but even when Jon touches him, Brendon just sucks harder.

Jon comes faster than he has in his life.

*

Jon has thought about the logistics of sex. He's a teenager, he jerks off and watches porn and fucks around with William and he's thought about it. Personally, he thinks anyone who says they haven't is lying.

Even so, laying on his bed in just a tee shirt, jeans tossed across the room with Brendon kneeling between his legs, the reality seems so very far away from the thought that Jon doesn't really know what to with that disconnect. Brendon's eyes are wide and blown, mouth hanging open just a little bit with his lips spit slicked and beautiful.

"Is. Is this okay?" he asks, hands anchored on Jon's hips. His thumbs sweep in short, rhythmic arcs over the ridges of the bone, sending little shocks down his thighs. "Do you want this?"

There is no short answer to that question; it's a tangle of need and fear and expectation,   
but the short answer is yes. His stomach twists at skin stretched tight and pale across Brendon's pelvis and his heart speeds up at the tension cording through Brendon's forearms.

"I want," Jon murmurs and it has to be enough.

They shift, bed springs squeak beneath them, and Jon ends up on his stomach, with a pillow tucked beneath his hips. Brendon settled behind him, bends down and kisses the knobs of his spine through his shirt. "Lube?"

"Top drawer."

Jon hears Brendon pull it open and rifle through the contents, he has to see the empty bottles and the weed, but he says nothing. The cap pops and Jon shudders without meaning to, curling his hands around the sheets and hoping to a God he lost faith in that he's doing the right thing. Or, if he can't be right, he's not breaking Brendon.

He has no idea when Brendon got to be important.

"One?" Brendon asks. "To start?"

"Doesn't matter," Jon says softly.

He wants to feel it, but he doesn't know how to ask or what that even means. Brendon trails a finger down and slides it in, so fucking slowly, like Jon has bones made of glass and will break with anything harder.

One finger is barely an intrusion, in the purest physical sense, but it's a mindfuck nonetheless. It's Brendon inside him, Brendon's finger and Jon could almost laugh at that. He always hated that they were grouped together, despite being nothing alike and having nothing to do with each other, and here they are. Just like everyone always said.

"You can." Jon swallows. "More."

Brendon adds a second, then a third, and Jon has been at this place before, but only ever with his own hand and it's sure as hell isn't the same. Brendon's fingers are longer and thinner and a strange combination of less certain and more. He finds a cautious rhythm and Jon doesn't know why it breaks his heart a little that Brendon doesn't want to hurt him.

"Is it. Are you?" Brendon's voice comes out in controlled, staccato bursts of low sound.

Jon nods. "Please, Bren. Just. Please."

To himself, Jon can admit fear as Brendon slicks himself up and shifts his hips. He can admit guilt and worry and everything that weighs him down every single fucking day to the power of one hundred. Despite that, or maybe because of it, Brendon feels right between his thighs and Jon hasn't wanted something in such a long time.

Brendon eases in and Jon buries his teeth in his forearm.

It's different than he expected. It's less moans of ecstasy and pleas for it harder and more of Brendon stopping and asking if he's okay, Jon gritting his teeth through uncomfortable parts for the pay off of when Brendon angles right and manages to hit this spot deep inside every now and then.

Brendon comes across his back and shirt and Jon feels like he's going to die.

He thinks, oddly enough, it would be worth it.

*

Jon hadn't meant to fall asleep, his skin had been too tight, mind going every which way, but Brendon had kissed his shoulder, surprisingly gentle, and Jon hadn't been able to keep his eyes open. He'd even whispered, well. He'd even whispered something really fucking stupid.

He tries to sit up, but everything below his waist hurts, and if he reaches up, he can feel the imprint Brendon's teeth made in the back of his neck. He doesn't look in the mirror as he stands, wincing at the ache between his legs.

There are bruises dotting his chest, his thighs, his back, and he cuts his eyes away, even as he's rummaging through his drawers for a pair of sweats and logic tells him he wouldn't be able to see his reflection in the mirror anyway.

He dresses quickly, and less warmly than someone exposed to eighteen years of Chicago winters should. Jon doesn't wear a watch, and didn't bring his cell phone along on this run, so he doesn't know the time. The sky is answerless, dark enough to belie the lateness of the hour, but gray as well, tipped on the corners of the inky sky with something that could be warmth, something that could pass for a curl of sunlight if someone were looking for it.

Jon starts to run, and he's not even sure where he's going, not sure what he's searching for or even if the smooth pavement under his feet can give him the answers.

He runs; past the school, through the center of time, around the graveyard, a place too sacred to desecrate. Jon runs until his lungs are burning and his chest is tight, runs until he thinks if he takes another step he'll collapse into a heap.

He runs farther than he ever has before and then he stumbles, loses his footing on a deserted stretch of road with only the stars for company, and collapses on a strip of sidewalk, breathing heavily into his knees.

His shirt is soaked through and the legs of his sweats are getting there too. It's freezing out, or it must be, Illinois in the winter, but Jon's skin is thrumming over his pulse, and he can't feel a thing through his thin tee shirt.

He huffs out a breath just to see if it'll show against the sky, and he almost smiles when it does. His joints hurt, and he thinks, there is a reason for this, and when he stretches, he's not sure if it's from the strain, from pushing himself further than he ever has or if it's something else, something more painful.

He's not sure how long he sits on the sidewalk, palms pressed against crunching grass, frosted over from the chill. He's cold, but he doesn't realize just how much until he picks himself up and starts to follow the path he'd come from.

He enjoys the chill. It reminds him that he's alive.

*

Their paper is due the Friday after Christmas break and, in the end, Jon takes the coward's way out. He leaves a folder with all his notes and the typed pages of the sections he agreed to write on Brendon's half of the desk, with a note saying he's going to be busy and won't be able to meet. Class doesn't have assigned seats and when Jon moves across the room people may very well notice but they don't say anything.

Brendon sends him an e-mail the night before it's due with nothing in the body, just an attachment of the final draft. Jon opens it and reads it, sends nothing back and hopes Brendon knows enough to take that as acknowledgment that it's fine.

They get an A-. Mr. James writes, Very well done, boys. There were a few awkward sections that could have done from some chatting and smoothing out, but impressive work, nonetheless. He hands it to Brendon and when Jon comes back from the bathroom halfway through class, it's sitting on his desk on top of his battered notebook.  
Jon tells himself it's better.

Brendon tries, once or twice, to talk to him.

He catches Jon's elbow in the hallway on their way to lunch and Jon shrugs him off without meeting his eyes, sliding to the safety of a circle of his friends. Brendon watches him most of the period, from his place between the Smith and Ross kids and Jon can only stomach half a plastic carton of orange juice.

Winter holds on longer than it usually does and Jon gets absolute confirmation from UNLV that he's good, in the form of an acceptance letter and an official incoming freshman orientation package. He opens it alone, sitting on the couch, with Mike asleep on the love seat and his mother on the phone with her lawyer about some hiccup in alimony and child support.

He spreads his hands over the glassy pages and lets out a breath. "Thank fucking God."  
His mother, when he tells her, hugs him tight. "Congratulations, honey. We'll get your father to work out financial aid."

Jon thinks he should have expected her to forget the entire fucking reason he's going to the desert is because they're willing to pay for it. His father is louder about his enthusiasm, but it feels forced. Logan's screaming in the background in counterpoint to Sindi's own helpless wails, and Jon hangs up without saying goodbye.

"You leaving, Jonny?" Mike asks and Jon swallows hard and nods.

In March he makes a calendar with the days left of the school year and ticks off a day every night, feeling a little bit like fucking Harry Potter, but not really caring. He's laying on his bed, staring at the empty white squares when the door bell rings.

His mom is actually at the grocery store, miracle of miracles, so Jon rolls of his bed and thuds down the stairs, passing Mike absorbed in a Simpsons marathon, and pulls open the door without bothering to check through the peep hole.

Which is a mistake.

Brendon's standing on the porch in the same stupid paint spattered cords and a tee shirt for a band Jon's never heard of beneath the lavender hoodie.

He says, "Hey."

Jon says, "What are you doing here?"

Brendon shifts back and forth on the balls of his feet, chewing on his bottom lip and playing the string on his hood. "I was in the neighborhood. Thought I'd stop by and see how things are going. With you."

The lie falls heavy between them and Jon can't. He can't.

"You should go."

"Jon, come on." Brendon rakes a hand through his hair. "I know, I know we're not fucking friends, I know that and Ryan and Spencer keep telling me that, but I keep fucking thinking about you. I know it's stupid, I am very well aware that it's monumentally stupid, but I can't help it and I just -- "

"Brendon." Jon cuts him off and Brendon snaps his jaw shut, cheeks colored. "I don't feel anything anymore. Not for my friends, not for my family, not for you. I like it that way and I need it that way."

Brendon stares for a moment and Jon closes the door, listening with an ear pressed to the wood until he hears Brendon's feet thud on the porch boards.

*

Jon graduates with a 2.9, which still leaves him in the top half of his class. There's a party at William's, and Jon can just see the lights if he lays flat on his bed facing the window.

He doesn't go.

Prom is the Saturday following, and he's not planning on going to that, either, not planning on seeing anyone from his high school or his town, or his stupid fucking life ever again.

Bill calls on the Friday after graduation, and apology in his voice for not making it down for the festivities. Jon wants to tell him that there were none, but instead he let's Bill talk about his wife, his kids, how Lindsay's pregnant again. For a second, Jon stares down at the phone, and wonders if the drugs have addled his brain so much that he's forgotten what Bill's wife is called. "It's the second time this year," he continues, and Jon blinks again. "I think she's one of those rare dogs that likes to be in heat."

Jon would laugh if he could remember how, and he feels lighter, practically tasting the freedom in the back of his throat. "Anything big planned for the big summer?" Bill was the kind of guy who would have had big stuff planned. Bill was the kind of guy, at Jon's age, who could make plans and actually have them stick.

Jon shrugs, even though Bill can't hear him through the line and is surprised to hear himself say, "Prom is tomorrow, but like. I'm not going." He's standing in the kitchen, leaning against the cabinets with the chord wrapped around his back and his fingers, wondering why he's talking about prom of all the stupid fucking things.

"Why the fuck not, Jonny-boy?" If he'd thought about it before he'd spoken, Jon would have predicted Bill's response down to a tee. As it is, he stays quiet.  
"Don't fucking tell me they won't let you go 'cause you're a -- " Jon cuts him off, wincing, because Bill means well, most of the time.

"Didn't want to," he mumbles, and he supposes that's true. William bought him a ticket months ago, it's upstairs in his bedroom, tucked into his mirror behind a brochure for the college of his choice. "Don't really have anything to wear."

Bill makes a noise like he's deciding something, then says, "I'll be by tomorrow, Jonny. All you needed to do was say the word."

Jon's not actually expecting him to show up.

*

At five o' clock on the dot, Bill rings the doorbell.

Jon opens and tries not to stare; the Bill standing there in a slightly wrinkled blue suit and just the left of ill fitting striped button down doesn't seem at all like the brother Jon remembers growing up, who wore jeans and his letterman jacket every day of his life, who got married on the beach in cut off khakis and a wife beater.

"I brought two," he says, standing in Jon's bedroom. "One's a little small on me, so I thought it might fit you better. You've got shirts, right? I remembered ties."

"Thanks," Jon says, accepting both suit bags, hating that his first thought is wondering what Bill's going to want in return for this unexpected brotherly act.

The blue one is too big, too wide through the shoulders, with cuffs that hang down almost the ends of his fingers. The waistband of the pants bunches uncomfortably beneath his belt and pool around his feet. Bill smiles, almost laughs, when Jon comes out of the bathroom. "Maybe try the black one?"

Unintentionally, Jon smiles, biting back a chuckle that feels rusty in his throat.  
The black is still a little on the big side (Jon honestly hadn't realized Bill was that much taller and broader than him) but it's serviceable. He unearths a red button down from the back of his closet, last worn at the football end of the year banquet he got dragged to, and, with liberal help from Bill, manages to get it somewhat ironed.

"I have a blue, a black and a green tie," Bill says, brushing a few stray pieces of lint off Jon's shoulders.

"I'm thinking green," Jon jokes. "I can be Christmas in May."

Bill rolls his eyes and bends down, rifling through the bottom of one of the bags. "Funny as that would be, I somehow think the black would just add a much better touch of sophistication and shit. Plus, then you don't have to belt carols the whole night."

Jon ties his tie facing the bathroom mirror while Bill leans against the door frame and watches. He remembers Mike and Bill teaching him how to do it when he was eleven, for some function the family went to while their father was away on business and couldn't help his littlest. Jon remembers it being fun, Mike looping his extra around Jon's head and chasing him around the upstairs.

"Who are you going with?" Bill asks, tapping his thumb against the opposite elbow.

"No one, really." Jon shrugs. "A bunch of us are going in a group."

Bill nods. "So, there's. Uh. No one special?"

Jon turns, not thinking about Brendon, very specifically not thinking about Brendon, and twists his mouth into a smile. "No, there's no one special, Bill. I'm not really into being that guy the bi-curious desperately horny use."

The expression on Bill's face makes Jon burst out in rough laughter and it's marginally closer to normal.

*

William shows up at six on the dot, and he looks nice, dressed up, pressed and immaculate, hair slicked back away from his face and a silver tipped walking stick twirling around his fingertips. Jon really wants to laugh, but he doesn't, and Will grins at him, big and bright.

"I would tell you your chariot awaited," he says as they're walking down the path from the door to the street, "But it's just my ma's station wagon. The horses are in the shop tonight." Jon rolls his eyes, but he's smiling, because he can just see the outline of Nate in the backseat, his date squeezed next to him, Vicky next to him, Gabe glowering from the front.

Jon wants to ask after him, or wants to want to, thinks he should, maybe, but he can't. The May air is cool and crisp and Jon only has to tug on his tie once to loosen it.

It's different once they get to the hotel, of course it is.

Jon's not particularly fond of their graduating class when they're all scattered to their separate corners of the high school, he's even less fond of them when they're all congregated in the sparkling ballroom of a swank hotel in the city, dressed up in tight, flashy clothes, dripping with the kind of sophistication they're not yet old enough to deserve.

It's not intentional, at least Jon doesn't think it is, but Brendon is the first person he sees. He's standing with Smith and Ross, grinning and waving his hands around to demonstrate -- something. He looks happy, but it's not like Jon cares.

He turns to say something to Will, to laugh off the dripping crystal chandelier, to break away from the clawing tension in his chest, but Will's not behind him when he looks, and when Jon turns forward again, leaning back against the wall, Brendon is staring straight at him.

He watches as Brendon tugs on Smith's shirt, wrinkling the sleeve, watches the familiarity between them, the ease, and feels something that tastes like jealousy in the back of his throat. A minute later, less than, despite the largeness of the room, Brendon's standing in front of him, eyes guarded and unreadable.

He tilts his head to the side just slightly and gestures over his shoulder without saying a word, and then he's gone, the entire exchange over with in a minute, less than. He starts to disappear in the crowd, and Jon isn't planning on following him, doesn't want to follow him, but can't stop his feet when they start to move.

Brendon leads them out onto a little balcony that leads out to secluded gardens below. There are signs everywhere that proclaim that trespassing is illegal, but Brendon isn't stopping.

It's chilly, outside, cold enough that Jon's glad for the excess amount of material on his jacket. Brendon's shivering, but he looks determined. His eyes look naked, wild without his glasses to cover them, and Jon loses his breath, a little, at the sight of him bathed in all that moonlight.

"It's lame, right?" He's saying, pacing a small circle around the bench they're nearest to. They're hidden by the stairwell, and it's secluded, dark, just the two of them. "It's stupid, Jon Walker, because I should have known better." He presses his fingers to the space between his eyes, a motion Jon's seen so much it must be second nature, Brendon trying to push up the glasses that aren't there. "You're a jock. It's like, fucking rule number one in the gay kid's handbook. Never ever fucking get involved with anyone who throws balls. You never know where they're going to throw yours."

Jon doesn't move, and just as predicted, Brendon comes closer. There aren't words he knows that could fix this, this damage he's caused without even trying.

"I'm such an idiot," Brendon says again, and now he's close, closer than Jon's let him be in months, breath coming out in white little bursts that hang between them, heavy. "And you're a fucking jock. Gay stereotypes, we have them in spades."

Jon grits his teeth, and it doesn't take much to reverse their positions, Brendon pressed flat against the wall and squirming, eyes wide. Jon drops to his knees.

He's not exactly sure what he's doing, exactly, but the fastenings on Brendon's dress pants are a hundred times easier than the zippers of his skintight cords, and he gets them down around Brendon's ankles easily, the material falling past his thighs.

The night is inky and dark, and Jon doesn't think he can look away.

Brendon throws his head back with a moan that's barely muted when Jon sucks the head into his mouth, the palm of his free hand curled loosely along the base. He doesn't do much, doesn't know how to do much (has never done this before), but he feels Brendon's dick grow hard in his mouth, and he's moaning too, completely unprompted.

He pulls his mouth off with a pop, and Brendon leans back against the wall, a hand pressed against the cut of his hip, breathing wild and heavy, lip bitten red, mouth obscene and wet, like he's the one that's just been on his knees.

"I," he whispers, pressing his face against Brendon's stomach to catch his breath. Brendon's not going to make this easy, even though he's not pushing Jon away. "I want you to fuck -- "

Brendon's yanking him up, Brendon's pressing their mouths together, and he must taste something in Jon's mouth, because he presses closer, sealing their mouths. Jon's gasping by the time they break apart, gasping and shaky, and Brendon's already working at Jon's belt, at Bill's pants.

"You don't know," he whispers against Jon's ear, both their palms flat against the mossy expanse of wall. "You don't even fucking --" Something crinkles, and when Brendon pushes the first finger in, it's slick with something more than spit. The second finger isn't easy, but it's easier than it could have been.

Three is a stretch, but Jon's been here before, Jon knows what to expect, and he grits his teeth, waiting for the onslaught.

*

Jon doesn't walk at graduation.

He's not sure whether it's because he genuinely doesn't want to or if it's because no one would come even if he did; either way, he puts his foot down and tells William no, kisses him once in the darkness on their porch and says, "Please don't."

William nods, cheeks hallowed, and walks away.

That's the first goodbye and it hurts more than Jon would ever have expected. William's going to Berkley and, though they're headed in the same direction, toward the mythic west coast and the strange place where they're supposed to grow up, they're not going to the same place. It's strange, and maybe a little heartbreaking, to know that he will never kiss that mouth again.

He works full time over the summer and ends up buying a half decent pick-up truck, only five or six years old, with a blue paint job that's not too offensive to the eye. It's a little funny, handing over cash at the dealership, like being a criminal.

Which, considering all the pills he's popped, makes it even funnier in the worst way.

UNLV Jon finds, unsurprisingly, has a strict zero tolerance policy, enforced by both scheduled and random drug tests. The weed is an easy enough habit to kick, especially without anything much to worry about other than the vague smear of color and event that is his future. The pills are harder.

There are two weeks in July where he doesn't leave his room, alternating between feeling so down he thinks he's never going to be able to move again and angry enough to throw things against the wall to this place where he doesn't know who he is or what he's thinking or how the fucking hell he's going to survive. He barely sleeps and has long, nonsensical conversations on AIM that have his friends calling him the next morning and cautiously asking if he's okay. He downs coffee and, in the end, he feels wrung up, but somehow clearer than he has in months.

Even so, privately, he wouldn't change it. Survival is survival and fall was a lot further away when his life was actively falling down around him.

"I'm happy for you, honey," his mom says, kissing his cheek. "I'm glad you're doing something."

Jon hugs her tight, for the first time in longer than he can remember, and blinks away the unexpected prick of tears. It's strange, thinking that maybe there might be something to come back for, if he ever wanted to.

She sits up with him as he fills out all the paperwork required to become a student and an athlete, checking to make sure he signed on all the lines and initialed in the right boxes. Jon ends up with a meal plan and a roommate named Michael Carden who, weirdly enough, is also from Chicago.

He spends three days at orientation in Nevada and he tries to let the dry heat of the desert sink into his bones. It's strange, but with a hot wind blow against his face, almost abrasive, he feels like he could belong there, if he gave it the chance. Will and Nate and Gabe text every night, asking if he's become a mummy, if they make them ration water, if he's picked up any hookers or seen any Elvis impersonators.

Jon texts back no the first three and yes the last, complete with a picture of him standing arm and arm with a fat Elvis in a white jumpsuit, lip curled in a more than passable sneer.

"Did you change your mind about going?" Nate asks, teasing and faintly hopeful in the same moment.

"No," Jon says with a soft chuckle. "'Fraid not."

The first day of September, he's standing on his driveway in the rain, bed of the truck loaded with everything he owns, while his mother and father stand with Sindi, Logan on her hip, between them. Mike has ruffled his hair the night before, said, "Have fun and don't be me," and Jon takes that as a better goodbye than any tears.

Bill calls and passes the phone to each of his kids. "Bye, Uncle Jon," they chorus in turn and Jon smiles and says he'll miss them and he means it.

He told Brendon, in an e-mail with nothing else in it, what day he was leaving and didn't expect a reply. He didn't get one.

"I'm so proud of you honey," his mom says, hugging him tight and brushing away tears. She's smiling though and Jon kisses both of her cheeks. It's not really her fault, he thinks, and he will always love her.

"Good luck, kiddo." His father claps him on the shoulder and smiles. Jon ducks his head and nods, biting down hard on his lower lip. This is what he wants, what he's always wanted, and fuck if he's going to cry.

Sindi gets an awkward little kiss on the cheek and Logan one of the top of his head.

Brendon doesn't come and Jon tells himself it makes perfect fucking sense. The last time they spoke to each other was at prom and that wasn't even anything. It was a moment in time, of desperation, and Jon wouldn't want to ever see himself again if he were Brendon. He would want to punch himself in the face. He maybe does want to punch himself in the face.

The rain picks up and his mom heads inside, his father and family heading for their car.

Jon pulls open the door and climbs in. He has a thermos of coffee and his iPod, two hundred in cash in his wallet for gas and food and a kind of bizarrely polite GPS borrowed from Bill that tells him he's an asshole when he deviates from the set route, even if the road he's suppose d to turn onto doesn't exist anymore.

He starts the engine, gets halfway down the drive and hears someone yell his name.

Jon looks.

Of course.

Brendon's running down the street in a tee shirt spattered with rain and the painted cords, ridiculous sneakers and red glasses slipping down the end of his nose. Jon cuts the engine without a second thought and throws the door open, hits the pavement and waits for Brendon to come to him.

He's panting, when he skids to a stop, and tanned and beautiful and Jon knows how this is going to go.

"Don't leave," Brendon says in a rush of sound. His eyes are red and his hands are shaking a little. "Jon, don't leave."

Jon closes his eyes and prays, and it's something he's taken to doing lately. "Goodbye, Brendon."

"No." Brendon shakes his head hard enough for little drops of water to come flying off. "No. Jon. I." He pauses for the space of a heartbeat and his face contracts, crumples in on itself. "I love you?"

This, maybe, is what dying feels like.

Jon puts his hands on Brendon's shoulders, leans in and kisses him once, chaste.

"Goodbye, Brendon."

Getting the truck is the hardest thing he's ever had to do and, driving away, he can see Brendon hunched in on himself in the rearview.

*

The first miracle is that Jon doesn't hate his roommate. Well, no. The first miracle is that he actually makes it through the desert at all, manages to park his truck, get all of his shit, and find his dorm without passing out from heatstroke or spontaneously combusting from dehydration.

The second miracle is that he doesn't hate his roommate. The guy is quiet unless he's talking about his music, compulsively neat, a heavy drinker, and a smoker of cigarettes so finely packed, Jon's never going to Cash again as long as he lives.

The good will towards men, the sense of freedom, the appreciation of the sun, and the knowledge that he got out keep him sustained for a while, longer than he realistically thought they would.

He gets up in the morning and he goes to class and he plays football, and he's not spectacular, he's not even really good, but then, he hadn't expected to be. He does what he needs to do, he goes to every practice, every game, even if he is second-string, even if he'll never set foot on the field.

His roommate becomes one of his best friends. His only friend, really, considering texts from Will, from Gabe, from Nate, start to wane. Jon isn't surprised, he says the words over and over in his head, and they're real, and he understands them, even if sometimes he wishes he didn't.

He doesn't think about Brendon.

Mike asks, because Mike can, because Mike is the kind of guy who doesn't believe in bullshit. Mike asks, says, "You're gay," point blank, and serious. "Right?" Jon nods, because he's not ashamed, not really. It's not a surprising turn of conversation from a guy who's lived with him for the past three months. After a minute, Mike nods, turns back in his swivel chair to focus on whatever's playing on his computer. "Cool," he says, almost as an afterthought.

Jon continues not thinking about Brendon. He goes out with the guys from the team, and it's surprisingly not unlike high school was. He's far enough away from it to fall into a routine, manages to forget, at least for a little while, that, "It wasn't so bad," doesn't really apply to him.

He even manages to find UNLV's version of a William, though the imitation falls slightly short. He's small, but broad-chested, with russet colored hair that falls into bangs across his eyes, and a smile that belies his true nature.

Patrick is snarky, but he's fun, and they don't agree on everything -- they don't agree on anything much, really, but Jon manages nights spent in his bed, manages to forget Brendon's smell and his taste; manages to push away all thoughts of how Brendon feels.

The guys on the team don't know, and it's almost novel, in the first few months, not dealing with the cat calls that come with being the only gay kid on the team. They don't ask, and college really is different, in that they don't care; he's not important enough to matter yet.

Mike invites him over for Christmas, but Jon has to say no. He stayed on campus for Thanksgiving on the assumption that it would be easier for everyone involved, better, and then spent most of the day curled up on his bed, alternating between talking to his mom and Mike, his dad and Logan, and Bill's family.

They'd all planned to get together, Jon found out later, on accident, from Bill. For one day, they were all going to make a valiant attempt at being a family because Jon would have been there, the triumphant son returned, but without him, it didn't seem to make much difference. Jon isn't really entirely sure if it's a good idea, but he can't not go and Mike nods like he understands.

Mike drops him off, at the airport, settling in, because his flight isn't until later. They hug goodbye, which feels nice, but Jon's still cold when they step apart, and Mike says, "Give me a call when you're up there, okay? We'll get coffee." Jon nods, expecting Mike to let him go, but he doesn't. "I mean it, Jon Walker," he says, eyes clear.

"Because you don't see me enough?" Mike shakes his head, clamping his hand down on Jon's arm. He reaches over to hug Jon again, and Jon tries his hardest not to stiffen.

"I don't," he says, and for a second Jon believes him.

*

His mom picks him up from the airport, in a red sweat shirt with glittering, felt Rudolph on the front. It's awful and tacky and it makes Jon smile as she rushes over and throws her arms around his neck. She's crying and Jon thinks he has missed her, but in a distant way. "Oh, Jonathan Jacob," she says to his neck, voice watery and Jon holds her tight.

The funny thing is, Jon got out and he got everything he wanted, but he still feels flat around the edges, like he's looking at everything through a film that leaches color and blurs the details. It's a wonderful life, or so he's been told, but he can't see it.

His room hasn't changed, though his mom and Mike both have. They're a little happier, a little sunnier, and Jon is glad for them, he really is.

He picks up some hours at the grocery store, because he's home for a month, and he doesn't have a job at school, and it'd be nice to have some money in his pocket when he gets back.

Carden stops by a few times, and Jon's grateful for the distraction, but Mike has to go home at some point, and Jon doesn't begrudge him that.

He's working the 11-6 shift, and for the most part it's slow, mopping the floors, straightening things on the shelves people never by, standing on his tiptoes to catch snatches of game highlights on the TV suspended over the entranceway.

He's practically asleep on his feet, hasn't seen a customer in hours, when Brendon walks in, and even then, Jon thinks he's dreaming.

He has on the cords, even more spattered with paint and now sport a little hole in the knee, and the lavender hoodie with a new decoration on one of the cuffs in black and silver sharpie. His glasses are sliding down the end of his nose and he's got circles of shadow smeared underneath his eyes, hunched like he's carrying the weight of the world between his shoulder blades.

"Jon," he says on the exhale and, silly as it is, Jon's heart still squeezes and stutters in his chest.

He's spent a lot of time thinking about Brendon.

"Bren." Jon swallows hard and shoves his hands into his pockets. "What. What are you doing here at two in the morning?"

Brendon shrugs, looking around the store. Up close he looks even thinner than before. "Would you believe that I've come here a lot in the past couple months?" He tries for a smile, but it's weak on the corners, and Jon's stomach starts to flip.

"It's not even on your side of town," he says, and Brendon blinks at him, because in the entire time they'd known each other, Jon had never once been to Brendon's house, had no part in Brendon's life, save for the snatches he'd been lucky enough to receive.

"Yeah," he mumbles, looking down at the ground. "Look," he says after a minute, and when he looks at Jon, his eyes are resigned behind his glasses. "I fucking." He pauses, running a hand through his hair, messing it up it even more. "I fucking missed you, okay?" His voice is brittle. "Fuck if I know why. I didn't even know you were home, Jon, seriously. I just hoped sometimes." He swallows and Jon watches the line of his throat.

"Did you mean what you said?" He asks, and that hadn't been what he'd meant to say at all, but there it is, and he can't take it back, no matter how much he wants to.

"No," Brendon says, closing his eyes. "And yes. I don't know. You were leaving and I wanted you to stay. I. I needed you to stay and it was all I could think that might keep you here. And then, you know, I said it and it felt way too much like the fucking truth."

Jon forgets how to breathe for a long moment.

He thinks, he knows, that this could be one of this stupid moments in life that stay with you forever. A fork in the road, a split in the path, down one road lies life A and down the other waits life B. He's only nineteen, he thinks, and really not old enough to deal with that, but there's nothing he can do about it.

Even tired, pale, exhausted, and falling apart at the seams, Brendon is still inordinately beautiful and Jon is tired of being blank.

"Brendon," he says, "I. I am an idiot."

Brendon blinks at him. "No, Jon Walker, you're not. I mean, you are, when it comes to some stuff. But, for the most part, you're a pretty decent dude."

Jon blinks at him, and Brendon tries to smile again. It's not as pretty as it could be. "You know the only time I've felt anything in the past year, was when I was with you? My parents divorced, and I didn't care, because hey, everybody's parents are getting divorced. I didn't think about it when it was happening, but it can't be normal, the only kid left living in the house, listening to their yelling and not giving a damn." Brendon nods, and he looks like he understands.

"Jon," he whispers, and it sounds like a plea. "You shouldn't fucking start things you don't know how to finish, okay?"

"No. I'm not." Jon comes out from behind the check out and Brendon flinches a little, sinking further into himself and Jon is so, so stupid. "Just hear me out?"

Brendon inhales and nods, chewing hard on his bottom lip and Jon prays, hopes, that he can do this. Words have never been his forte, the trip and fall off his tongue and land hard and heavy, any nuance lost in his stutters, but he has to try.

"I didn't feel anything because it was better, at the time. It was easier." Jon shakes his head. "I was just trying to get through the day, Bren. Survive and shit. And then you came along and you didn't just leave me alone like everyone else and you cared, I think. Which, I don't know, I don't think anyone really cared. You made me feel something and, not gonna lie, it sucked and I hated it. Or I thought I did."

"So?" Brendon huffs out a sound that's meant to be a laugh. "You got out, Jon. You got away. Good for you, what does it matter?"

"I still don't feel anything," Jon bursts out, raking a hand through his hair. "How's that for fucked up? I got everything I wanted and I still don't feel because all I think about most days is you."

Brendon's eyes go huge and Jon ducks, not sure he wants to see. "I didn't mean to," Brendon says, voice soft. "I didn't mean to fucking fall in love with you. I didn't." He shrugs, Jon can see the motion of his shoulders. "Who the fuck knows what love is, anyway?"

Jon hazards a look up before he can stop himself. "I don't," he says honestly, and Brendon grins. It's not a normal grin, but it's getting there, and Jon can feel his heart picking up.

"I'm going to Vegas," Brendon says, apropos of nothing. Jon's eyes practically bug out of his head. "Not because of you," Brendon hastens to say, though the tops of his cheeks are going pink. "Or. A little because of you. I had these like, fantasies of running into you on the street." Jon feels his face splitting with something he can't quite place. "But I'm. My sister. My sister has kids, lots and lots of kids, and they need a live-in, so." He shoves his hands in his pockets. "Not stalking, just uh." He runs his hand through his hair again. "Wishful thinking?"

"I can give you my address," he says, and Brendon smiles again, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Brendon bites down on his lip, but he's smiling around it. "Yeah?" He asks.

On impulse, Jon leans forward, brushing their mouths together. "Yeah," he says when he pulls back. His mouth coasts over Brendon's again, light, gentle, almost, and for the first time in as long as Jon can remember, he feels.


End file.
